Featured
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Article
| Open AccessDearomatization drives complexity generation in freshwater organic matter
Using complementary multiplicity-edited 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, oxidative dearomatization is shown to be a key driver for generating structural diversity during processing of dissolved organic matter and the data also suggest high abundance of OCqC3 units.
- Siyu Li
- , Mourad Harir
- & Norbert Hertkorn
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Article
| Open AccessEnvironmental drivers of increased ecosystem respiration in a warming tundra
Datasets from in situ warming experiments across 28 arctic and alpine tundra sites covering a span of less than 1 year up to 25 years show the importance of local soil conditions and warming-induced changes therein for future climatic impacts on ecosystem respiration.
- S. L. Maes
- , J. Dietrich
- & E. Dorrepaal
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Matters Arising |
Model uncertainty obscures major driver of soil carbon
- Xianjin He
- , Rose Z. Abramoff
- & Daniel S. Goll
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Model uncertainty obscures major driver of soil carbon
- Feng Tao
- , Benjamin Z. Houlton
- & Yiqi Luo
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Article |
A unified explanation for the morphology of raised peatlands
Physical analysis of processes universal to raised peatlands produces an equation that explains their morphology and carbon storage across biomes, from Alaska to New Zealand.
- Alexander R. Cobb
- , René Dommain
- & Charles F. Harvey
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Article
| Open AccessBiological carbon pump estimate based on multidecadal hydrographic data
By using several decades of hydrographic data and an inverse biogeochemical model that implicitly accounts for all known export pathways, a top-down estimate of the strength of the biological carbon pump is calculated.
- Wei-Lei Wang
- , Weiwei Fu
- & François W. Primeau
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Article
| Open AccessRock organic carbon oxidation CO2 release offsets silicate weathering sink
Silicate weathering of uplifted rock depletes atmospheric CO2, but oxidation of revealed rock organic carbon supplies CO2, offsetting depletion to a degree dependent on regional geological history.
- Jesse R. Zondervan
- , Robert G. Hilton
- & Mateja Ogrič
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Increased Amazon carbon emissions mainly from decline in law enforcement
Comparison of the carbon balance during 2010–2018 with 2019 and 2020 shows that a decline in law enforcement may have led to an increase in Amazon forest carbon emissions.
- Luciana V. Gatti
- , Camilla L. Cunha
- & Guilherme B. M. Machado
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Article
| Open AccessGlobal methane emissions from rivers and streams
A spatially explicit global estimate reveals that land–water connections are important for regulating methane supply to running waters, and that these connections are vulnerable to both climate change and direct human modifications of the land.
- Gerard Rocher-Ros
- , Emily H. Stanley
- & Ryan A. Sponseller
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Article
| Open AccessLong-term organic carbon preservation enhanced by iron and manganese
Catalysis of simple organic carbon molecules into complex macromolecules by Fe and Mn may play a fundamental role in organic carbon preservation, to a degree that could substantially affect the Earth’s carbon and oxygen cycles.
- Oliver W. Moore
- , Lisa Curti
- & Caroline L. Peacock
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Krill body size drives particulate organic carbon export in West Antarctica
A multi-decadal sediment-trap time series reveals that the body size, not the abundance, of Antarctic krill drives the particulate organic carbon flux on the continental shelf of the West Antarctic Peninsula.
- Rebecca Trinh
- , Hugh W. Ducklow
- & William R. Fraser
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Uncovering the Ediacaran phosphorus cycle
Reconstruction of oceanic phosphorus concentrations during a large negative carbon-isotope excursion co-occurring with global oceanic oxygenation and evolution of some of Earth’s earliest animals suggests that decoupled phosphorus and ocean anoxia cycles during the Ediacaran may have prolonged the rise of atmospheric oxygen.
- Matthew S. Dodd
- , Wei Shi
- & Timothy W. Lyons
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Article
| Open AccessIncreasingly negative tropical water–interannual CO2 growth rate coupling
Records show that tropical water availability rather than temperature appears to have been increasingly controlling the interannual variability of the terrestrial carbon cycle over the past 59 years.
- Laibao Liu
- , Philippe Ciais
- & Sonia I. Seneviratne
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Article
| Open AccessMicrobial carbon use efficiency promotes global soil carbon storage
A deep learning and data-driven modelling study finds that microbial carbon use efficiency is a major determinant of soil organic carbon storage and its spatial variation across the globe.
- Feng Tao
- , Yuanyuan Huang
- & Yiqi Luo
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Matters Arising |
Quantifying the carbon benefits of ending bottom trawling
- Jan Geert Hiddink
- , Sebastiaan J. van de Velde
- & Marija Sciberras
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Article
| Open AccessNet greenhouse gas balance of fibre wood plantation on peat in Indonesia
Measurements of the net ecosystem exchanges of CO2, CH4 and soil N2O from Acacia plantation, degraded forest and intact forest enable presentation of the peatland wood plantation rotation greenhouse gas flux balance.
- Chandra S. Deshmukh
- , Ari P. Susanto
- & Chris D. Evans
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The carbon sink of secondary and degraded humid tropical forests
Analysis of satellite-based data on recovering degraded and secondary forests in three tropical moist forest regions quantifies the amount of aboveground carbon accumulated, which counterbalanced one quarter of carbon emissions from old-growth forest loss between 1984 and 2018.
- Viola H. A. Heinrich
- , Christelle Vancutsem
- & Luiz E. O. C. Aragão
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Diagnosing destabilization risk in global land carbon sinks
Increasing variability of net biome production over recent decades may be due to climate change and points to destabilization of the carbon–climate system.
- Marcos Fernández-Martínez
- , Josep Peñuelas
- & Ivan A. Janssens
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The evolution of the marine carbonate factory
Geochemical insights from a dataset of carbonate stable strontium isotopes suggest that porewater production of authigenic carbonates may have been an overlooked carbonate sink for much of Earth’s history.
- Jiuyuan Wang
- , Lidya G. Tarhan
- & Noah J. Planavsky
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Review Article |
River ecosystem metabolism and carbon biogeochemistry in a changing world
A review of current river ecosystem metabolism research quantifies the organic and inorganic carbon flux from land to global rivers and demonstrates that the carbon balance can be influenced by a changing world.
- Tom J. Battin
- , Ronny Lauerwald
- & Pierre Regnier
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Neogene burial of organic carbon in the global ocean
A ‘bottom-up’ approach for calculating the rate of organic carbon burial in the global ocean shows larger variability than has been previously estimated, suggesting that the organic carbon cycle acted as positive feedback of past global warming.
- Ziye Li
- , Yi Ge Zhang
- & Benjamin J. W. Mills
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Wetland emission and atmospheric sink changes explain methane growth in 2020
Using both bottom-up and top-down approaches, the record high increase in the methane growth rate in 2020 is attributed mainly to emissions from wetlands, which have been exacerbated by a warmer and wetter climate, and to the reduced atmospheric methane sink, in response to emissions reduction of air pollutants during COVID-19 lockdowns.
- Shushi Peng
- , Xin Lin
- & Philippe Ciais
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Article
| Open AccessHydroclimatic vulnerability of peat carbon in the central Congo Basin
Between around 5,000 to 2,000 years ago, a drying climate in the vast peatlands of the Congo Basin triggered peat decomposition and carbon release to the atmosphere, implying that this region may be vulnerable to future climate change.
- Yannick Garcin
- , Enno Schefuß
- & Simon L. Lewis
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Article
| Open AccessArctic Ocean annual high in \({{\boldsymbol{p}}}_{{{\bf{CO}}}_{{\bf{2}}}}\) could shift from winter to summer
Simulations suggest that the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the Arctic Ocean will shift from a winter to a summer maximum owing to enhanced summer sea surface warming from earlier sea-ice retreat.
- James C. Orr
- , Lester Kwiatkowski
- & Hans-Otto Pörtner
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Direct evidence for phosphorus limitation on Amazon forest productivity
Nutrient manipulation of low-phosphorus soil in an old growth Amazon rainforest shows that phosphorus availability drives forest productivity and is likely to limit the response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
- Hellen Fernanda Viana Cunha
- , Kelly M. Andersen
- & Carlos Alberto Quesada
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Perspective |
The land-to-ocean loops of the global carbon cycle
An assessment of the land-to-ocean cycling of carbon through inland waters, estuaries, tidal wetlands and continental shelf waters provides a perspective on the global carbon cycle and identifies key knowledge gaps.
- Pierre Regnier
- , Laure Resplandy
- & Philippe Ciais
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: The size of the land carbon sink in China
- Jing Wang
- , Liang Feng
- & ChaoZong Xia
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: On the role of atmospheric model transport uncertainty in estimating the Chinese land carbon sink
- Jing Wang
- , Liang Feng
- & ChaoZong Xia
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Matters Arising |
The size of the land carbon sink in China
- Yilong Wang
- , Xuhui Wang
- & Josep G. Canadell
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Article |
Limited increases in savanna carbon stocks over decades of fire suppression
A direct estimate is provided of the whole-ecosystem carbon response to fire suppression in a mesic African savanna, showing limited increase in carbon storage despite a large increase in tree cover.
- Yong Zhou
- , Jenia Singh
- & A. Carla Staver
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Article |
Methane formation driven by reactive oxygen species across all living organisms
Methane formation by a ROS-mediated process is linked to metabolic activity and is identified as a conserved feature across living systems.
- Leonard Ernst
- , Benedikt Steinfeld
- & Frank Keppler
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Article |
A wet heterogeneous mantle creates a habitable world in the Hadean
A hydrated, heterogeneous mantle resulting from magma ocean solidification is shown to be key to the rapid formation of Earth’s habitable surface environment during the Hadean era.
- Yoshinori Miyazaki
- & Jun Korenaga
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Article |
Single-year radiocarbon dating anchors Viking Age trade cycles in time
Disturbances in the radiocarbon record anchor a precisely dated archaeological stratigraphy of a medieval trading emporium in Denmark in time, revealing that the Viking expansion was associated with competition for trade routes rather than with raids.
- Bente Philippsen
- , Claus Feveile
- & Søren M. Sindbæk
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Article |
Non-syntrophic methanogenic hydrocarbon degradation by an archaeal species
‘Candidatus Methanoliparum’ overexpresses genes encoding alkyl-coenzyme M and methyl-coenzyme M reductases—markers of archaeal multicarbon alkane and methane metabolism—and thrives on a variety of long-chain alkanes and n-alkylcyclohexanes, and n-alkylbenzenes with long n-alkyl (C≥13) moieties.
- Zhuo Zhou
- , Cui-jing Zhang
- & Lei Cheng
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RETRACTED ARTICLE: A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to increasing CO2
An emergent constraint combining biosphere models and carbon budget estimates suggests that the increase in the global terrestrial carbon sink is caused largely by a CO2-induced increase in photosynthesis.
- T. F. Keenan
- , X. Luo
- & S. Zhou
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Article |
Baleen whale prey consumption based on high-resolution foraging measurements
A combination of 3D whale locations and acoustic measurements of prey density is used here to show that whales’ consumption of krill is several times larger than often thought.
- Matthew S. Savoca
- , Max F. Czapanskiy
- & Jeremy A. Goldbogen
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Article |
Widespread phytoplankton blooms triggered by 2019–2020 Australian wildfires
Oceanic deposition of wildfire aerosols can enhance marine productivity, as supported here by satellite and in situ profiling floats data showing that emissions from the 2019–2020 Australian wildfires fuelled phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean.
- Weiyi Tang
- , Joan Llort
- & Nicolas Cassar
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Article |
High aboveground carbon stock of African tropical montane forests
The aboveground carbon stock of a montane African forest network is comparable to that of a lowland African forest network and two-thirds higher than default values for these montane forests.
- Aida Cuni-Sanchez
- , Martin J. P. Sullivan
- & Etienne Zibera
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The Montreal Protocol protects the terrestrial carbon sink
Modelling suggests that the Montreal Protocol may be mitigating climate change by protecting the land carbon sink, as well as by protecting the ozone layer and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Paul J. Young
- , Anna B. Harper
- & Rolando R. Garcia
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Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change
Aircraft observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and monoxide concentrations in Brazil show higher carbon emissions in eastern Amazonia than in the western part, which are linked to increased ecosystem stress and fire occurrence.
- Luciana V. Gatti
- , Luana S. Basso
- & Raiane A. L. Neves
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A lithium-isotope perspective on the evolution of carbon and silicon cycles
Analysis of shallow-water marine carbonate samples from 101 stratigraphic units allows construction of a record of lithium isotopes from the past 3 billion years, tracking the evolution of the global carbon and silicon cycles.
- Boriana Kalderon-Asael
- , Joachim A. R. Katchinoff
- & Philip A. E. Pogge von Strandmann
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Article |
High CO2 levels drive the TCA cycle backwards towards autotrophy
In the deltaproteobacterium Hippea maritima, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle can be reversed by high partial pressures of CO2 for the autotrophic fixation of carbon.
- Lydia Steffens
- , Eugenio Pettinato
- & Ivan A. Berg
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Article |
Overriding water table control on managed peatland greenhouse gas emissions
Halving average drainage depths in agricultural peatlands could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 1 per cent of all anthropogenic emissions.
- C. D. Evans
- , M. Peacock
- & R. Morrison
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Article
| Open AccessSoil moisture–atmosphere feedback dominates land carbon uptake variability
Factorial climate model simulations show that 90% of the inter-annual variability in global land carbon uptake is driven by soil moisture and its atmospheric feedback on temperature and air humidity.
- Vincent Humphrey
- , Alexis Berg
- & Christian Frankenberg
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Matters Arising |
Old-growth forest carbon sinks overestimated
- Per Gundersen
- , Emil E. Thybring
- & Vivian K. Johannsen
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Old-growth forest carbon sinks overestimated
- Sebastiaan Luyssaert
- , E.-Detlef Schulze
- & John Grace
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Article |
Global and regional drivers of land-use emissions in 1961–2017
Trends in the rate of region- and sector-specific land-use greenhouse gas emissions in 1961–2017 show an acceleration of about 20% per decade after 2001.
- Chaopeng Hong
- , Jennifer A. Burney
- & Steven J. Davis
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Large Chinese land carbon sink estimated from atmospheric carbon dioxide data
Newly available atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements from six sites across China during 2009 to 2016 indicate a larger land carbon sink than previously thought, reflecting increased afforestation.
- Jing Wang
- , Liang Feng
- & ChaoZong Xia
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Soil carbon loss by experimental warming in a tropical forest
When tropical forest soils are warmed in situ, they release more CO2 than predicted by theory, creating a potentially substantial positive feedback to climate change.
- Andrew T. Nottingham
- , Patrick Meir
- & Benjamin L. Turner