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Decision makers are in need of decadal climate forecasts, for example, to help plan infrastructure investments. When — or whether — climate modellers will be able to deliver is not yet clear.
The surface layer of the Southern Ocean connects the atmosphere with the deep subtropical ocean. Ocean observations reveal that the thickness of this layer — important for biological productivity — is controlled by the strength and position of the southern circumpolar winds.
At the end of the twentieth century, tropical deforestation was associated with the growth of rural populations. An assessment of the factors involved in forest loss suggests that today's trees are more likely to be affected by economic pressures from farther afield.
About 94.5 million years ago, oxygen levels in the deep ocean dropped while carbon burial rapidly increased. Geochemical analyses suggest that the release of sulphate from extensive volcanism set off a sequence of biogeochemical reactions that led to ocean anoxia.
The earliest evolution of our planet is difficult to reconstruct. Ancient rocks in Western Australia show an isotopic signature that links their formation with 4.3-billion-year-old crust.
The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the end of the last glacial period has been attributed to a release of carbon from the abyssal ocean. Radiocarbon analyses from the Chilean margin have failed to find evidence that supports this hypothesis.
Predicting an El Niño or La Niña event before the preceding spring has proved to be difficult. Taking into account coupled ocean–atmosphere modes in the Indian Ocean region that have a two-year periodicity may provide the basis for longer forecasting lead times.
Greenland is losing ice through glaciers that flow into deep fjords. New observations highlight the important fjord processes that supply warm ocean waters to the melting glaciers, and thereby affect Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise.
In the North Atlantic region, six massive iceberg discharge events marked the last glacial period. A numerical model now links these events to ocean temperatures and ice-shelf conditions.
The south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus is anomalously warm, geologically youthful and cryovolcanically active. Episodic convective overturn explains how the moon's modest sources of internal heat can be channelled into intense geological activity.
Hydrologists have thought of soil as a kind of giant sponge that soaks up precipitation and slowly releases it to streams. But according to new evidence the soil water used by vegetation may be largely decoupled from the water that flows through soils to streams.
The sequence of events during the collision between India and Eurasia has long been contested. Numerical simulations imply that the key to the puzzle could lie in the subduction of continental lithosphere.
Arsenic occurs naturally in the groundwater of southern Asia. Analyses of an agricultural site in Bangladesh suggest that human activities, including widespread farming practices, can dictate where elevated arsenic is found.
The effect of rising greenhouse-gas emissions on climate is not uniform across the globe. An analysis of the mechanisms behind model-projected changes in ocean temperature gives greater confidence in the pattern of tropical warming and its potential impacts.
Where the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates collide under the South Island of New Zealand large quantities of aqueous fluid are produced. But how does this happen? Geophysical and petrological data indicate that it may not be as we thought.
