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The resilience of tropical forest ecosystems to seasonal drought is linked to terrestrial potassium and phosphorus availability, according to a nutrient addition experiment in a moist forest in Uganda.
Hydrous minerals within the Earth affect volatile cycling and mantle geodynamics. Jun Tsuchiya explains how stable phases of these minerals are being uncovered at increasingly high pressures.
Water in the mantle transition zone beneath Northeast Asia is sourced from the Earth’s surface and introduced by the subducted Pacific slab, according to a study of potassium isotopes from Cenozoic volcanics.
Isotopically depleted organic matter reported in ancient sediments on Mars could have been synthesized from CO produced due to photolysis of CO2 in the early Martian atmosphere.
The causes of symmetrical changes in climate between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere are poorly understood. A geological reconstruction of Patagonian glacial extent reveals that changes in Pacific-wide atmospheric circulation (linked to variations in Earth’s orbit and teleconnections between hemispheres) may have led to nearly synchronous global ice sheet evolution.
Patagonian ice sheet changes largely mirrored those of the Northern Hemisphere over the last glacial cycle owing to displacements of the southern westerly winds, according to beryllium isotope constraints.
Maintenance of estuarine tidal flats requires a minimum turbidity level that increases with tidal range, according to a global analysis of tidal-flat changes from satellite imagery.
Hydrothermal flow pathways and extent of alteration within serpentinized peridotite in Mid-Atlantic Ridge oceanic core complexes are modulated by mafic intrusions, according to full waveform inversion of seismic data and local earthquake tomography.
The trace-element compositions of mantle-derived basalts suggest that the asthenosphere has two distinct melt layers, with unique chemical compositions and physical properties.
The accumulation of partial melt at two distinct depth ranges in the asthenosphere is widespread, including in areas of mantle upflow, according to a study of Y/Yb compositions of oceanic and continental basalts.
A study using multiple satellite observations shows that the land-surface warming due to tropical forest loss is stronger than the cooling due to tropical forest gain. This effect should be included in Earth system models, particularly as tropical afforestation is considered to be a natural climate solution.
The impact of forest loss on land surface temperature in the tropics is five times greater than the response to forest gain, according to satellite observations of temperature and land cover.
The response of CO2 release from soils to warming is enhanced at thermokarst sites due to the lower soil substrate quality and higher microorganism abundance than non-thermokarst locations, according to in situ warming experiments at an upland thermokarst on the Tibetan Plateau.
Strike-slip motion along the tiger stripe fracture zones of Enceladus may act to modulate quasi-periodic jet activity, according to finite-element simulations of diurnal tidal deformation on the moon’s icy shell.
The interaction between aerosol and meteorology amplifies the positive effects on air quality, health and renewable energy under China’s carbon neutrality target for 2060, according to an integrated modelling analysis.
In a part of the Apennines, where the Earth’s crust is thin and heat flow is high, production of CO2 from deep below the mountains dominates over near-surface weathering processes that consume this greenhouse gas. Ultimately, the magnitude of deep CO2 release tips the balance towards a landscape that is a net carbon emitter.
A global gauge-corrected monthly river flow and storage dataset suggests that residence time is a key driver of water storage and variability and indicates substantial freshwater discharge to the ocean from the Maritime Continent.
Aerosol–cloud interactions are the largest uncertainty in radiative forcing. We combined machine learning and long-term satellite observations to quantify aerosol fingerprints on tropical marine clouds, using degassing volcanic events in Hawaii as natural experiences, and found that cloud cover increased relatively by 50% in humid and stable atmosphere, leading to strong cooling radiative forcing.