Featured
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Perspective |
Collaboration between women helps close the gender gap in ice core science
Authorship statistics from ice core science suggest that collaboration between women is a key factor in closing gender gaps in scientific publishing.
- Bess G. Koffman
- , Matthew B. Osman
- & Sofia Guest
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Article |
Ozone pollution mitigation strategy informed by long-term trends of atmospheric oxidation capacity
Summer ozone in urban Beijing increased until 2014 and then decreased, according to 15 years of measurements in August from 2006 to 2020.
- Wenjie Wang
- , Xin Li
- & Yuanhang Zhang
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Article |
Century-scale carbon sequestration flux throughout the ocean by the biological pump
The century-scale marine sequestration flux of biogenic inorganic carbon driven by the biological pump over the whole water column may be several times higher than previous estimates.
- Florian Ricour
- , Lionel Guidi
- & Louis Legendre
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Research Briefing |
Marine heatwaves are occurring globally below the sea surface with increasing frequency
Analysis of sea temperatures using a four-dimensional spatio-temporal framework has revealed a great number of marine heatwaves occurring globally below the sea surface. These extreme events, which threaten the ecologically important epipelagic zone, have occurred increasingly frequently during the past three decades owing to ocean warming.
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Article
| Open AccessFrequent marine heatwaves hidden below the surface of the global ocean
Substantial numbers of marine heatwaves are hidden globally below the sea surface, according to analyses of ocean temperature data.
- Di Sun
- , Furong Li
- & Bohai Zhang
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Article
| Open AccessRadiative forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions enhanced by large-scale circulation adjustments
Convection-permitting simulations suggest that the radiative impact of aerosol–cloud interactions is enhanced by adjustments to large-scale circulation, which increase cloudiness.
- Guy Dagan
- , Netta Yeheskel
- & Andrew I. L. Williams
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News & Views |
Metals for microbes in the ancient sea
Identifying the metal micronutrients required by early life could help to illuminate how primitive organisms arose, but which metals were biologically available in ancient seawater has not been determined. A new experimental framework suggests how the precipitation of iron minerals from seawater reduced the availability of key metals, particularly zinc, copper and vanadium.
- Jena E. Johnson
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Article
| Open AccessSubstantial and increasing global losses of timber-producing forest due to wildfires
Wildfires have caused widespread and increasingly severe losses within timber-producing forests in recent decades, according to maps of logging activity and wildfires.
- Christopher G. Bousfield
- , David. B. Lindenmayer
- & David P. Edwards
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Article |
Southeast Asian ecological dependency on Tibetan Plateau streamflow over the last millennium
Reconstructions of Tibetan Plateau streamflow over the last millennia reveal close associations with dry season vegetation and major population shifts in Southeast Asia.
- Feng Chen
- , Wenmin Man
- & Fahu Chen
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Article |
Climate variability a key driver of recent Antarctic ice-mass change
The Southern Annular Mode and ENSO are the main drivers of recent decadal variability in Antarctic ice mass, according to analysis of satellite-based gravimetric observations.
- Matt A. King
- , Kewei Lyu
- & Xuebin Zhang
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Article |
A hydrogen-enriched layer in the topmost outer core sourced from deeply subducted water
Deeply subducted water may have enabled the exchange of hydrogen and silicon between the mantle and core, according to high-pressure and -temperature experiments.
- Taehyun Kim
- , Joseph G. O’Rourke
- & Yongjae Lee
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Article |
Micronutrient availability in Precambrian oceans controlled by greenalite formation
Mineral precipitation experiments suggest the formation of greenalite, an iron silicate mineral, limited zinc, copper and vanadium levels in the Archaean ocean, making them unavailable to early microbial life.
- Rosalie Tostevin
- & Imad A. M. Ahmed
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Article
| Open AccessExtratropical forests increasingly at risk due to lightning fires
Lightning-induced fires account for 77% of the burned area in extratropical intact forests, and lightning ignitions will probably become more frequent as the global climate warms, according to a global attribution of lightning and anthropogenic fires from 2001 to 2020.
- Thomas A. J. Janssen
- , Matthew W. Jones
- & Sander Veraverbeke
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Article |
Diverse slip behaviour of velocity-weakening fault barriers
Velocity-weakening seismic barriers in subduction zones display a range of behaviours consistent with geologic structural control on earthquake seismicity, according to earthquake cycle simulations along a megathrust.
- Diego Molina-Ormazabal
- , Jean-Paul Ampuero
- & Andrés Tassara
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Research Briefing |
Bipolar control on changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide over millennial timescales
Deep-sea acidity data combined with ice-core carbon dioxide records reveal that an interplay between the two polar regions modulates ocean ventilation through various modes. These modes explain past variations in deep-sea carbon storage and atmospheric carbon dioxide on millennial timescales.
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Editorial |
Healthier air, healthier planet
Air pollution is a leading cause of death globally. Efforts to clean the air will not only save lives but contribute to addressing broader environmental and socioeconomic challenges.
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Research Briefing |
A rock record of H2 production in the ancient Earth
H2, which is formed by the oxidation of iron in rocks, was likely a critical source of energy for early life. Analysis of natural rock samples from 3.5–2.7 billion-year-old komatiites, combined with geochemical data from a global database, quantifies the amount of H2 likely to have been produced in Earth’s ancient oceans.
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All Minerals Considered |
Carbonate’s fluid history
Carbonates are key minerals for understanding fluids and their interactions with near-surface environments. Ashley King explores their significance on Earth, and beyond.
- Ashley J. King
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Comment |
Spotlight on air pollution in Africa
Africa’s worsening air pollution has received too little attention. We argue that actions are needed in energy transition management, transport emission regulation and waste management to protect Africa’s air quality.
- Mohammed Iqbal Mead
- , Gabriel Okello
- & Francis David Pope
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Article
| Open AccessEarly Eocene low orography and high methane enhance Arctic warming via polar stratospheric clouds
Indirect forcing by low regional orography and high atmospheric methane levels contributed to the amplified Arctic temperatures in the early Eocene by enhancing polar stratospheric cloud formation, according to an atmospheric model with interactive chemistry.
- Deepashree Dutta
- , Martin Jucker
- & Jiang Zhu
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Perspective |
Atmospheric new particle formation from the CERN CLOUD experiment
The CLOUD experiment provides important insights into new particle formation in different atmospheric environments.
- Jasper Kirkby
- , António Amorim
- & Douglas R. Worsnop
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Research Briefing |
Locally surprising megafloods in Europe can be anticipated from continent-wide observations
Megafloods are rare and hence difficult to predict. However, using a collation of historical flood observations across Europe, it is now shown that recent megafloods could have been anticipated — local surprises are in fact not surprising at the continental scale.
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Comment |
Booming solar energy is encroaching on cropland
The rapid spread of solar power plants onto cropland is having increasingly detrimental impacts. Targeted policy and technological solutions are urgently needed to resolve the tension between renewable energy and food production.
- Ning Zhang
- , Huabo Duan
- & Xuemei Bai
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Article |
Geological evidence for high H2 production from komatiites in the Archaean
Serpentinization of komatiites produced large quantities of H2 in the Archaean, which has implications for the start of early chemosynthetic life, according to petrologic and bulk rock chemical analyses.
- R. Tamblyn
- & J. Hermann
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Perspective |
Regional but not global temperature variability underestimated by climate models at supradecadal timescales
Discrepancies between model simulations and proxy reconstructions of regional multidecadal to centennial climate variability are primarily due to climate model deficiencies, which might also impact future projections, according to a synthesis of recent work.
- T. Laepple
- , E. Ziegler
- & K. Rehfeld
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Article |
Megafloods in Europe can be anticipated from observations in hydrologically similar catchments
European river discharge observations suggest that catchments with similar flood generation processes produce similar extremes, enabling better predictability of megafloods using a continental scale perspective.
- Miriam Bertola
- , Günter Blöschl
- & Nenad Zivkovic
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Article |
Globally coherent water cycle response to temperature change during the past two millennia
Global temperature fluctuations during the last 2,000 years caused consistent changes in ocean evaporation and atmospheric moisture condensation processes, reflected in coherent water isotope signals in a large compilation of proxy records.
- Bronwen L. Konecky
- , Nicholas P. McKay
- & Kei Yoshimura
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Article |
Chicxulub impact winter sustained by fine silicate dust
Fine silicate dust generated by the Chicxulub impact had a dominant role in the global cooling and disruption of photosynthesis that followed, according to palaeoclimate simulations constrained by grain-size analysis of Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary sediments.
- Cem Berk Senel
- , Pim Kaskes
- & Özgür Karatekin
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Article |
Global crop production increase by soil organic carbon
Increasing soil organic carbon can, under optimum management only, enhance global production of maize, wheat and rice by up to 0.7% with important regional differences, according to 13,662 field trials across a broad range of soils, climates and management practices.
- Yuqing Ma
- , Dominic Woolf
- & Johannes Lehmann
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Article |
Spatial pattern of marine oxygenation set by tectonic and ecological drivers over the Phanerozoic
Tectonic and ecological factors controlled spatially contrasting marine redox changes through the Phanerozoic, a pattern that was in turn linked to background extinction rates, according to a machine learning-based analysis of shale geochemical data.
- Xiangli Wang
- , Thomas J. Algeo
- & Maoyan Zhu
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Article
| Open AccessMillennial atmospheric CO2 changes linked to ocean ventilation modes over past 150,000 years
The variable intensity of Southern Ocean as well as North Atlantic deep-water ventilation explains differences in atmospheric CO2 trends and magnitudes during cold stadials over the past 150,000 years, according to a record of deep-ocean acidity.
- J. Yu
- , R. F. Anderson
- & J. F. McManus
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Article |
Substantial halogenated organic chemicals stored in permafrost soils on the Tibetan Plateau
Chemical analyses show permafrost soils on the Tibetan Plateau contain large amounts of halogenated organic chemicals that could be remobilized in a changing climate.
- Xiaojing Zhu
- , Fan Yang
- & Jan Schwarzbauer
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Article |
Emergence of the modern global monsoon from the Pangaea megamonsoon set by palaeogeography
Varying monsoon extent and intensity since the expansive megamonsoon on the Pangaea supercontinent was controlled by the position and fragmentation of continental land masses, according to climate simulations and atmospheric energetic analyses.
- Yongyun Hu
- , Xiang Li
- & Zhengtang Guo
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Article |
Oxygenated deep waters fed early Atlantic overturning circulation upon Antarctic glaciation
Deep-ocean oxygenation patterns consistent with an active Atlantic meridional overturning circulation emerged following the Eocene-Oligocene transition about 34 million years ago, according to biomarker records from the northwest North Atlantic.
- Huanye Wang
- , Weiguo Liu
- & Zhonghui Liu
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Research Briefing |
Subglacial landscape in the Antarctic interior consistent with past fast ice flow
Swath radar maps of the subglacial landscape reveal how Antarctica’s geologic history has influenced the evolution of the ice sheet. The findings indicate the role of past interior ice streams in shaping ice-sheet growth and flow from Hercules Dome.
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Article
| Open AccessOxygenation of the Baltoscandian shelf linked to Ordovician biodiversification
Animal diversification coincided with increasing oxygenation of the Baltoscandian continental shelf from the Early to Middle Ordovician, according to iodine and calcium records.
- Anders Lindskog
- , Seth A. Young
- & Jeremy D. Owens
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Article |
Increasing contribution of nighttime nitrogen chemistry to wintertime haze formation in Beijing observed during COVID-19 lockdowns
Analyses of atmospheric nitrogen chemistry in Beijing’s air pollution during the COVID-19 lockdown suggest an increasing role of nighttime nitrogen chemistry in haze formation above the city.
- Chao Yan
- , Yee Jun Tham
- & Markku Kulmala
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Article |
Geometric controls on cascading rupture of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake doublet
Analysis of remote-sensing and seismological observations from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake doublet reveals how fault geometry can control fault slip distribution and rupture kinematics, including the occurrence of supershear rupture.
- Yijun Zhang
- , Xiongwei Tang
- & Heping Sun
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Article
| Open AccessScars of tectonism promote ice-sheet nucleation from Hercules Dome into West Antarctica
Alpine valleys and lineated bedforms imaged with swath radar suggest that ice flowed quickly into a fault-bounded basin during the initial nucleation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet near Hercules Dome.
- Andrew O. Hoffman
- , Nicholas Holschuh
- & Knut Christianson
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All Minerals Considered |
The crystal timekeeper zircon
Recording 4.3 billion years of Earth’s history, Jesse Reimink explores the many ways that zircon allows geologists to keep track of the past.
- Jesse Reimink
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Research Briefing |
The Shatsky Rise oceanic plateau formed through plume–ridge interaction
There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of oceanic plateaus: plume versus plate. Thermodynamic modelling of magmatism at Shatsky Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, now suggests that neither mechanism is adequate on its own and in fact plume–ridge interaction is required to explain the formation of this ocean plateau.
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Research Briefing |
A Grand Canyon palaeoclimate record shows a strengthened Early Holocene monsoon
From a stalagmite that grew 14,000–8,500 years ago, isotopic data provide a detailed history of groundwater infiltration associated with a strengthening North American monsoon, as the climate transitioned from a cool dry late-glacial period into a warmer and wetter Early Holocene.
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Research Briefing |
Satellite data show increased biomass carbon stocks in northern young forests
Accurate estimates of the land carbon sink are vital for informing climate projections and net-zero policies. Application of a strict filtering method to microwave satellite data enabled the evaluation of global vegetation biomass carbon dynamics for 2010–2019. The results highlight the role of demography in driving forest carbon gains and losses.
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Perspective |
Biogeochemistry of Earth before exoenzymes
Exoenzymes produced by heterotrophic microorganisms early in Earth history helped unlock previously unavailable organic matter and transformed ocean geochemistry.
- Nagissa Mahmoudi
- , Andrew D. Steen
- & Kurt O. Konhauser
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Article |
Magmatism of Shatsky Rise controlled by plume–ridge interaction
Thermodynamic simulations suggest that Shatsky Rise magmatism is controlled by the interaction between mantle plume and mid-ocean ridge.
- Xubo Zhang
- , Eric L. Brown
- & William W. Sager
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Global increase in biomass carbon stock dominated by growth of northern young forests over past decade
A decade of satellite observations suggests that old, degraded and deforested tropical forests are almost carbon neutral whereas northern young forests are the biggest contributor to the rising amount of carbon stored globally in vegetation.
- Hui Yang
- , Philippe Ciais
- & Jean-Pierre Wigneron
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Article
| Open AccessWidespread small grabens consistent with recent tectonism on Mercury
The widespread occurrence of young grabens associated with larger compressional structures on Mercury’s surface suggests contractional tectonism has continued on the planet into geologically recent times.
- Benjamin Man
- , David A. Rothery
- & Jack Wright
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Soil carbon losses due to priming moderated by adaptation and legacy effects
Enhanced soil carbon mineralization due to additional organic matter inputs, a phenomenon called priming, diminishes within a few years as soils adapt to the higher carbon inputs.
- Marcus Schiedung
- , Axel Don
- & Samuel Abiven
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Article |
Elevated Grand Canyon groundwater recharge during the warm Early Holocene
Early Holocene groundwater recharge rates were higher than modern in the Grand Canyon region, probably due to an expanded North American Monsoon, according to a speleothem record and isotope-enabled palaeoclimate modelling.
- Matthew S. Lachniet
- , Xiaojing Du
- & Benjamin W. Tobin