Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Palm oil biofuels are touted as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Meijide and colleagues use greenhouse gas measurements to update life cycle assessments of oil palm growth scenarios and show that despite the promise, emission savings do not meet sustainability standards.

    • Ana Meijide
    • , Cristina de la Rua
    •  & Alexander Knohl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land cover change contributes to regional climate trends. Here, the authors use high-resolution land cover maps and state-of-the-art climate modelling to assess land cover change effects across Europe over 1992-2015, showing widespread cooling after agricultural abandonment but also different, region-specific effects.

    • Bo Huang
    • , Xiangping Hu
    •  & Francesco Cherubini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Supported metal single-atom catalysts face challenges on both durability and practicality. Here, the authors demonstrate that a sustained 90% diesel oxidation conversion at ~160 oC is achieved by single-atom Pt on TiO2 nanowire-array integrated catalytic converter.

    • Son Hoang
    • , Yanbing Guo
    •  & Pu-Xian Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooling of the iron core in the early Earth may have been too slow to allow for the generation of a magnetic field. Based on quantum mechanical and geodynamical modelling approaches, the authors find that the electrical conductivity of silicate liquid at high pressure and temperature conditions could have been sufficient to generate a silicate dynamo and a magnetic field in the early Earth.

    • Lars Stixrude
    • , Roberto Scipioni
    •  & Michael P. Desjarlais

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conservation actions focused on flagship species are effective at raising funds and awareness. Here, McGowan et al. show that prioritizing areas for conservation based on the presence of flagship species results in the selection of areas with ~ 79-89% of the total species that would be selected by maximizing biodiversity representation only.

    • Jennifer McGowan
    • , Linda J. Beaumont
    •  & Hugh P. Possingham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the Asian monsoon, earth surface processes and human development interact is not well known. Here, a new record of dust storm intensity shows a relationship between the stability of dynasties and dust storm activity for the last ~2200 years, which argues for a strong human control of dust storms in East Asia over this time.

    • Fahu Chen
    • , Shengqian Chen
    •  & Jianbao Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contributions of industrial parks towards addressing climate change remains unclear. Here, the authors studied the energy infrastructure of 1604 industrial parks in China and found that by decarbonizing energy infrastructure stocks in the industrial parks, the GHG mitigation potential will achieve 8%~16% relative to the GHG emissions in the baseline scenario with positive economic benefits, water savings and air pollutant emission reductions.

    • Yang Guo
    • , Jinping Tian
    •  & Lyujun Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are concerns that expansion of marine protected areas could have negative effects on the fishing industry. Here Lynham et al. demonstrate that the expansion of two of the world’s largest protected areas did not have a negative impact on catch rates in the Hawaii longline fishery.

    • John Lynham
    • , Anton Nikolaev
    •  & Juan Carlos Villaseñor-Derbez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Decoupling emission reduction target determination, air pollution modelling, and health benefit estimation complicates control strategy design. Here an integrated approach identifies strategies to reduce health damages of air pollution, showing that benefits can be achieved cost-effectively by electrifying sources with high primary PM2.5 emission intensities.

    • Yang Ou
    • , J. Jason West
    •  & Daniel H. Loughlin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether bird migration patterns are restricted to interglacial periods or are maintained during glacial maxima. Somveille et al. apply a global migration simulation model to climate reconstruction to show that the prevalence of this phenomenon has likely been largely maintained up to 50,000 years ago.

    • Marius Somveille
    • , Martin Wikelski
    •  & Walter Jetz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New hydrological simulations show for the first time how sensitive groundwater and surface water connections are to systematic warming across the continental United States. The authors here show a clear reduction in subsurface water storage under a warming climate and intensified aridification of north America.

    • Laura E. Condon
    • , Adam L. Atchley
    •  & Reed M. Maxwell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The carbon footprints of natural gas supplies at the field level are unclear. Here the authors analysed the GHG intensities of gas supplies from 104 fields and show that their GHG intensities range from 6.2 to 43.3 g CO2eq MJ-1.

    • Yu Gan
    • , Hassan M. El-Houjeiri
    •  & Michael Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Eddies are common ocean features that isolate large swaths of seawater, but it is unclear how they influence productivity of phytoplankton trapped inside. Here Ellwood and colleagues use stable and radiogenic isotopes to characterize a Southern Ocean eddy, finding vanishingly low iron concentrations that drive low productivity across the region.

    • Michael J. Ellwood
    • , Robert F. Strzepek
    •  & Philip W. Boyd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Compound hot extremes that combine day- and nighttime heat have particularly strong impacts. Here, the authors show that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have made compound hot extremes increasingly frequent and intense, and project that under future emissions four to eight times as many people will be affected by them by 2100.

    • Jun Wang
    • , Yang Chen
    •  & Jiangjiang Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biogeographic patterns of genetic diversity are poorly documented, especially for fish species. Here the authors show that (mitochondrial) genetic diversity has global spatial organization patterns with different environmental drivers for marine and freshwater fishes, where genetic diversity is only partly congruent with species richness.

    • Stéphanie Manel
    • , Pierre-Edouard Guerin
    •  & Loïc Pellissier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Higher plant diversity in agricultural settings is often associated with lower biomass yield and with lower forage quality. Here, Schaub et al. show positive effects of plant diversity on biomass yield, quality-adjusted yield and revenues in semi-natural grassland across a range of management intensities.

    • Sergei Schaub
    • , Robert Finger
    •  & Michael Scherer-Lorenzen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ammonia oxidizing archaea and Nitrospinae are the main known nitrifiers in the ocean, but the much greater abundance of the former is puzzling. Here, the authors show that differences in mortality, rather than thermodynamics, cell size or biomass yield, explain the discrepancy, without the need to invoke yet undiscovered, abundant nitrite oxidizers.

    • Katharina Kitzinger
    • , Hannah K. Marchant
    •  & Marcel M. M. Kuypers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glaciers have profoundly shaped Earth’s surface, but glacial erosion models lack a strong empirical basis. Cook et al. have compiled a dataset that illustrates how the speed at which glaciers move controls the rate at which they erode, and that climate is crucial in modulating glacier sliding speed and erosion rates.

    • Simon J. Cook
    • , Darrel A. Swift
    •  & Richard I. Waller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The freshwater content of the Beaufort Gyre in the Western Arctic Ocean has increased in response to almost two decades of persistent anti-cyclonic winds. Here, the authors found that dramatic loss of sea ice and acceleration of surface currents after 2007 led to a net annual wind energy input to the Beaufort Gyre, and anticipate that continued sea ice decline will lead to an increasingly energetic Beaufort Gyre.

    • Thomas W. K. Armitage
    • , Georgy E. Manucharyan
    •  & Andrew F. Thompson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbes secrete a repertoire of extracellular proteins to serve various functions depending on the ecological context. Here the authors examine how bacterial community composition and habitat structure affect the extracellular proteins, showing that generalist species and those living in more structured environments produce more extracellular proteins, and that costs of production are lower in more diverse communities.

    • Marc Garcia-Garcera
    •  & Eduardo P. C. Rocha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    What drives hydroclimate changes in tropical regions is not well known. Here, the authors present a 12,000 year long precipitation record from Guetemala which shows that exceeding a threshold in sea surface temperatures caused Central American rainfall to change from a dry to an active convective regime around 9000 years ago.

    • Amos Winter
    • , Davide Zanchettin
    •  & Carla Taricco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Accumulation of micro and nano-plastic in the oceans has emerged as a global challenge. Here, the authors predict a hierarchy of features that regulate their degradation and surface erosion by a thorough analysis of polymer structure, composition, physical properties and degradation data.

    • Kyungjun Min
    • , Joseph D. Cuiffi
    •  & Robert T. Mathers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The degree of flooding in a particular location depends sensitively on local topography and bathymetry. Here the authors used the remarkability of flood events to estimate county-specific flood thresholds for shoreline counties along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States and found that several areas experience noticeable flooding at a height lower than existing thresholds.

    • Frances C. Moore
    •  & Nick Obradovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zoos contribute to conservation actions in the wild. Here, Mooney et al. use a global dataset to show that, while zoos with more and larger animals attract the most visitors and contribute the most to conservation projects, there are viable alternative strategies to maximise attendance and conservation activity.

    • Andrew Mooney
    • , Dalia A. Conde
    •  & Yvonne M. Buckley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human-driven losses of megafauna and megaflora may have disproportionate ecological consequences. Here, the authors combine metabolic scaling theory and global simulation models to show that past and continued reduction of megabiota have and will continue to decrease ecosystem and biosphere functioning.

    • Brian J. Enquist
    • , Andrew J. Abraham
    •  & Christopher E. Doughty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tropical cyclones can cause severe damage, in particular through flooding of coastal areas. Here, the authors show that in addition to known impacts, tropical cyclone rainbands can cause meteotsunami waves that can contribute significantly to the total water levels and hence flooding risks.

    • Luming Shi
    • , Maitane Olabarrieta
    •  & John C. Warner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plants are thought to be limited by phosphorus (P) especially in tropical regions. Here, Hou et al. report a meta-analysis of P fertilization experiments to show widespread P limitation on plant growth across terrestrial ecosystems modulated by climate, ecosystem properties, and fertilization regimes

    • Enqing Hou
    • , Yiqi Luo
    •  & Dazhi Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact on inadequate water quality on water scarcity is unclear. Here the authors quantify China’s present-day water scarcity and show that inadequate water quality exacerbates China’s water scarcity, which is unevenly distributed across the country.

    • Ting Ma
    • , Siao Sun
    •  & Chenghu Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here present the diurnal tides of dust within the southern Martian atmosphere. The dust tides imply a fast meridional exchange of heat and materials on Mars and allow water content near the summer pole to be rapidly transported to the middle latitudes in the nighttime which is then lifted by daytime deep convection.

    • Zhaopeng Wu
    • , Tao Li
    •  & Jun Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of paddy rice agriculture in the spatial and temporal dynamics of atmospheric methane concentration remains unclear. Here, Zhang et al. show that regions with dense rice paddies have high satellite-based column averaged CH4 concentrations (XCH4), and that seasonal dynamics of XCH4 mirror those of paddy rice growth.

    • Geli Zhang
    • , Xiangming Xiao
    •  & Berrien Moore III

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Middle East is known to emit large amounts of non-methane hydrocarbon pollutants to the atmosphere, but the sources are poorly characterized. Here the authors discover a new source—deep water in the Red Sea—and calculate that its emissions exceed rates of several high gas-production countries.

    • E. Bourtsoukidis
    • , A. Pozzer
    •  & J. Williams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Following the impact of the protoplanet Theia, planet Earth likely transformed into a magma ocean. New high temperature and pressure experiments by Xie et al. suggest that a layer enriched in bridgmanite formed during the magma ocean phase of Earth–remnants of this ancient layer today may be responsible for the viscosity peak between 660 and 1500 km in present solid mantle.

    • Longjian Xie
    • , Akira Yoneda
    •  & Denis Andrault

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Resilience to drought is crucial for tree survival under climate change. Here, DeSoto et al. show that trees that died during drought were less resilient to previous dry events compared to surviving conspecifics, but the resilience strategies differ between angiosperms and gymnosperms.

    • Lucía DeSoto
    • , Maxime Cailleret
    •  & Jordi Martínez-Vilalta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors investigate thermal alteration of organic biomarkers to detect paleo earthquakes in the Japan Trench. The study shows that large earthquakes like the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake can slip through different types of sediment rather than being restricted to the weakest layers.

    • Hannah S. Rabinowitz
    • , Heather M. Savage
    •  & James D. Kirkpatrick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effect of soil structure is not included in most Earth System Models. The authors here introduce and evaluate the consequences at local and global scale of modifying hydraulic properties of soils in response to biological activity—a process significantly changing soil structure.

    • Simone Fatichi
    • , Dani Or
    •  & Roni Avissar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) is a crucial scenario describing the potential of future socio-economic development. The authors here investigate long-term effects of various government policies suggested by different SSPs on urban land and reveal the impact of future urban expansion on other land and food production.

    • Guangzhao Chen
    • , Xia Li
    •  & Kangning Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Relative economic benefits of achieving temperature targets have not properly accounted for damages at higher temperatures. Here the authors integrate dynamic cost-benefit analysis with a damage-cost curve and show that the Paris Climate Agreement constitutes the economically optimal policy pathway for the future.

    • Nicole Glanemann
    • , Sven N. Willner
    •  & Anders Levermann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sulfur is one of the key volatiles in Earth’s chemical cycles; however, sulfur speciation, isotopic composition, and flux during the subduction cycle remain unclear. Here, the authors provide direct constraints on subduction zone sulfur recycling from high-pressure rocks and explore implications for arc magmatism.

    • Ji-Lei Li
    • , Esther M. Schwarzenbach
    •  & Xin-Shui Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ensemble spread of climate models is often interpreted as the uncertainty of the projection, but this is not always justified. Applying learning algorithms to an ensemble of climate predictions allows for a significant uncertainty reduction of projected global mean surface temperatures compared to the ensemble spread.

    • Ehud Strobach
    •  & Golan Bel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is important to gain a better understanding on the contributing factors fostering climate action in developing countries. Here, the authors investigate the attention levels paid to this issue in the planning and implementation stages of climate policies in Mexico during 1994-2018, and find that international negotiations and executive governmental plans are strong drivers of the climate policy discourse in Mexico and likely to be so for developing countries more generally.

    • Arturo Balderas Torres
    • , Priscila Lazaro Vargas
    •  & Jouni Paavola

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Southern Ocean plays a key role in glacial-interglacial transitions and today, Weddell Sea derived Antarctic Bottom Water is one of the most important deep water masses. New records show that in contrast to today, no Weddell Sea water was exported during the last two glacial maxima, providing new insights towards the condition of Antarctic Bottom Water formation in extreme climate states.

    • Huang Huang
    • , Marcus Gutjahr
    •  & Gerhard Kuhn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ~70 km-diameter Yarrabubba impact structure in Western Australia has previously been regarded as among Earth’s oldest meteorite craters, but has hitherto lacked absolute age constraints. Here, the authors determine a precise impact age of 2229 ± 5 Ma, which extends the terrestrial cratering record back in time by > 200 million years and establishes Yarrabubba as the oldest recognised meteorite impact structure on Earth.

    • Timmons M. Erickson
    • , Christopher L. Kirkland
    •  & Thomas M. Davison

  • Article
    | Open Access

    International agreements have been implemented to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to reduce their radiative forcing. Even though reported HFC-23 emissions are at a historical low, observations indicate that emissions have actually increased over recent years to higher levels than previously.

    • K. M. Stanley
    • , D. Say
    •  & M. Rigby

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