Featured
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Proterozoic seawater sulfate scarcity and the evolution of ocean–atmosphere chemistry
In the Proterozoic, sulfate concentrations in the oceans were low and atmospheric methane levels high, according to mass balance and diagenetic models that investigate the oxidation state of the Proterozoic oceans.
- Mojtaba Fakhraee
- , Olivier Hancisse
- & Sergei Katsev
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Global ocean heat transport dominated by heat export from the tropical Pacific
Effective heat transport in the global ocean is dominated by heat export from the tropical Pacific, whereas seawater transport pathways play only a minor role, according to an analysis of a gridded ocean data product.
- Gaël Forget
- & David Ferreira
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News & Views |
Ocean fingerprints on glacier motion
Thinning and retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ has reversed in 2016, in tandem with regional ocean cooling.
- Rebecca H. Jackson
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Article |
Interruption of two decades of Jakobshavn Isbrae acceleration and thinning as regional ocean cools
Jakobshavn Isbrae, the largest source of ice mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, has been re-advancing since 2016 after a decades-long retreat, reveals an analysis of airborne altimetry and satellite data. The advance coincides with regional ocean cooling.
- Ala Khazendar
- , Ian G. Fenty
- & Josh Willis
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Fully oxygenated water columns over continental shelves before the Great Oxidation Event
Before the Great Oxidation Event there was regional-scale, full water-column oxygenation above the continental shelf, according to molybdenum and thallium isotope records that indicate massive manganese oxide burial.
- Chadlin M. Ostrander
- , Sune G. Nielsen
- & Ariel D. Anbar
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An isotopically distinct Zealandia–Antarctic mantle domain in the Southern Ocean
A separate mantle domain, distinct from both the Pacific and Indian domains, exists beneath the Southern Ocean, according to isotope compositions of samples from the Australian–Antarctic ridge.
- Sung-Hyun Park
- , Charles H. Langmuir
- & Peter J. Michael
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Persistent organic matter in oxic subseafloor sediment
A large reservoir of organic carbon persists in oxic pelagic sediments for millions of years as demonstrated by samples from the North Atlantic and South Pacific. This predominantly proteinaceous carbon persists due to physical protection and adsorption to mineral surfaces.
- Emily R. Estes
- , Robert Pockalny
- & Colleen M. Hansel
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Nutrient release to oceans from buoyancy-driven upwelling at Greenland tidewater glaciers
Glacial meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet causes buoyancy-driven upwelling of nutrient-rich, subtropical waters from depth to the continental shelf. This nutrient transport may exceed the direct ice sheet inputs, according to geochemical analyses of transect samples from Sermilik Fjord.
- Mattias R. Cape
- , Fiammetta Straneo
- & Matthew A. Charette
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Editorial |
Deaths versus dollars
Past and future changes in tropical cyclones and the damage they cause are fiendishly difficult to detect and project. For the Atlantic, progress is being made; other ocean basins lag behind.
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Perspective |
The role of calcification in carbonate compensation
Changes in calcification of marine organisms must be considered to explain the deepening of carbonate accumulation during ocean recovery from acidification events. According to a literature synthesis and modelling, dissolution of sedimentary carbonate is not sufficient to explain observations.
- Bernard P. Boudreau
- , Jack J. Middelburg
- & Yiming Luo
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Fingerprints of internal drivers of Arctic sea ice loss in observations and model simulations
Internal low-frequency variability in the Arctic atmosphere can explain about half the summer sea ice decline over the past decades, according to an analysis of large ensembles of fully coupled climate model simulations.
- Qinghua Ding
- , Axel Schweiger
- & Ian Baxter
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News & Views |
Warming and freshening trends
While anthropogenic influence on global climate is clear, human impact on the Southern Ocean has been difficult to pin down. A new detection and attribution study achieves just that.
- Nathaniel L. Bindoff
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Article |
Recent Southern Ocean warming and freshening driven by greenhouse gas emissions and ozone depletion
Recent warming and freshening of the Southern Ocean can be attributed to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, with stratospheric ozone depletion also playing a role, according to a synthesis of observations and climate model simulations.
- Neil C. Swart
- , Sarah T. Gille
- & Nathan P. Gillett
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Large-scale impacts of the mesoscale environment on mixing from wind-driven internal waves
Mesoscale ocean features can alter the magnitude of turbulent mixing caused by wind-driven internal waves, an analysis of Argo float and model data suggests.
- C. B. Whalen
- , J. A. MacKinnon
- & L. D. Talley
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Article |
Cenozoic record of δ34S in foraminiferal calcite implies an early Eocene shift to deep-ocean sulfide burial
A Cenozoic reconstruction of the δ34S of marine sulfate suggests a shift in the locus of pyrite burial from shallow seas to the open ocean during the early Eocene.
- Victoria C. F. Rennie
- , Guillaume Paris
- & Jess F. Adkins
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West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat in the Amundsen Sea driven by decadal oceanic variability
Episodic melting of some Antarctic ice shelves is linked to ocean temperature cycles, according to new observations collected over 17 years near the Dotson Ice Shelf.
- Adrian Jenkins
- , Deb Shoosmith
- & Sharon Stammerjohn
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Increased nutrient supply to the Southern Ocean during the Holocene and its implications for the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 rise
The amount of nitrate in the surface of the Southern Ocean has increased during the Holocene, weakening the biological pump and potentially contributing to the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
- Anja S. Studer
- , Daniel M. Sigman
- & Gerald H. Haug
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Deglacial floods in the Beaufort Sea preceded Younger Dryas cooling
A 700-year-long flood of glacial meltwater, ice and sediment from the Mackenzie River preceded the freshening of the Beaufort Sea prior to the Younger Dryas climate event, according to sediment analyses.
- L. D. Keigwin
- , S. Klotsko
- & N. W. Driscoll
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Gulf Stream rings as a source of iron to the North Atlantic subtropical gyre
Gulf Stream rings may carry substantial amounts of iron to the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, according to measurements of iron concentrations in a ring and satellite data on ring activity.
- Tim M. Conway
- , Jaime B. Palter
- & Gregory F. de Souza
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News & Views |
Constraining ocean transport
Accounting for the oceanic transport of carbon suggests that existing estimates of the location and magnitude of the land carbon sinks need to be revised.
- Andrew Lenton
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Review Article |
Drivers and mechanisms of ocean deoxygenation
Ocean oxygen loss in a warming world is strongly affected by biogeochemical processes that are not fully accounted for in ocean models, suggests a literature synthesis.
- Andreas Oschlies
- , Peter Brandt
- & Sunke Schmidtko
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Article |
Revision of global carbon fluxes based on a reassessment of oceanic and riverine carbon transport
Terrestrial carbon sources in the Southern Hemisphere and sinks in the Northern Hemisphere may be smaller than thought, according to a recalculation that accounts for the oceanic redistribution of carbon.
- L. Resplandy
- , R. F. Keeling
- & P. P. Tans
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Editorial |
Limits to protection
Marine protected areas can support ecosystem resilience in the face of environmental stress, but only up to a point.
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Reduced air–sea CO2 exchange in the Atlantic Ocean due to biological surfactants
Biologically produced surfactants in the sea surface microlayer reduce air–sea exchange of CO2 in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to tank and ocean measurements.
- Ryan Pereira
- , Ian Ashton
- & Robert C. Upstill-Goddard
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Response of the Great Barrier Reef to sea-level and environmental changes over the past 30,000 years
The Great Barrier Reef has migrated rapidly in response to sea-level changes since the last glacial period, suggesting resilience to environmental stress over this interval, according to a reconstruction of reef accretion.
- Jody M. Webster
- , Juan Carlos Braga
- & Bryan C. Lougheed
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Global diffusive fluxes of methane in marine sediments
Much of the methane produced by the deep subseafloor biosphere is consumed by anaerobic methane oxidation with sulfate in continental shelf sediments, according to a global map and calculated budgets of methane fluxes and degradation.
- Matthias Egger
- , Natascha Riedinger
- & Bo Barker Jørgensen
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Comment |
No progress on diversity in 40 years
Ethnic and racial diversity are extremely low among United States citizens and permanent residents who earned doctorates in earth, atmospheric and ocean sciences. Worse, there has been little to no improvement over the past four decades.
- Rachel E. Bernard
- & Emily H. G. Cooperdock
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News & Views |
Push from the Pacific
Enhanced upwelling and CO2 degassing from the subpolar North Pacific during a warm event 14,000 years ago may have helped keep atmospheric CO2 levels high enough to propel the Earth out of the last ice age.
- Samuel L. Jaccard
- & Eric D. Galbraith
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Microbial decomposition of marine dissolved organic matter in cool oceanic crust
Microbe-mediated oxidation may account for at least 5% of the global dissolved organic carbon loss from the deep ocean, according to carbon isotope analyses on cool crustal fluids circulating through the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
- Sunita R. Shah Walter
- , Ulrike Jaekel
- & Peter R. Girguis
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Net retreat of Antarctic glacier grounding lines
Grounding lines in parts of West Antarctica, East Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula retreated faster than typical post-glacial pace, according to satellite observations and ice geometry measurements.
- Hannes Konrad
- , Andrew Shepherd
- & Thomas Slater
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News & Views |
Anoxia in the snow
Substantial amounts of denitrification and other anaerobic metabolisms can occur in anoxic microenvironments within marine snow particles, according to model simulations. This microbial activity may have a global impact on nitrogen cycling.
- Laura A. Bristow
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Global niche of marine anaerobic metabolisms expanded by particle microenvironments
Particle microenvironments can sustain anaerobic metabolisms such as denitrification in hypoxic ocean areas, according to biogeochemical modelling. Rates of water column denitrification may be up to double previous estimates.
- Daniele Bianchi
- , Thomas S. Weber
- & Curtis Deutsch
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Export of nutrient rich Northern Component Water preceded early Oligocene Antarctic glaciation
The onset of deep water export from the North Atlantic Ocean preceded the onset of Antarctic glaciation by about one million years, according to sediment geochemistry, and may have been triggered by tectonic changes in the Atlantic basin.
- Helen K. Coxall
- , Claire E. Huck
- & Jan Backman
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Article |
Response of Pacific-sector Antarctic ice shelves to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation
Ice-shelf mass in the Amundsen Sea is influenced by El Niño events and other interannual climate variability, according to an analysis of satellite altimeter data from 1994 to 2017.
- F. S. Paolo
- , L. Padman
- & M. R. Siegfried
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News & Views |
Slow warming and the ocean see-saw
The slowdown in surface warming in the early twenty-first century has been traced to strengthening of the Pacific trade winds. The search for the causes identifies a planetary-scale see-saw of atmosphere and ocean between the Atlantic and Pacific basins.
- Yu Kosaka
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News & Views |
New directions for ocean nutrients
The elemental ratios of marine phytoplankton and organic matter vary widely across ocean biomes, according to a catalogue of biogeochemical data, suggesting that climate change may have complex effects on the ocean’s elemental cycles.
- Tim DeVries
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Review Article |
Influence of diatom diversity on the ocean biological carbon pump
Size, morphology, silica content and life cycle of diatoms affect their contribution to the export of carbon to the deep ocean, suggests a literature review.
- Paul Tréguer
- , Chris Bowler
- & Philippe Pondaven
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Comment |
Exploring ocean worlds on Earth and beyond
The exploration of ocean worlds in the outer Solar System offers the opportunity to search for an independent origin of life, and also to advance our capabilities for exploring and understanding life in Earth’s oceans.
- Kevin Peter Hand
- & Christopher R. German
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Subsurface iceberg melt key to Greenland fjord freshwater budget
Iceberg melt is the largest annual freshwater source in a south Greenland fjord, with release largely below 20 m depth, according to iceberg-model simulations. Furthermore, iceberg melt peaks later in the year than other sources of freshwater.
- T. Moon
- , D. A. Sutherland
- & F. Straneo
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Contribution of topographically generated submesoscale turbulence to Southern Ocean overturning
Interactions between narrow frontal currents and topography in the Drake Passage enhance bottom mixing, according to ocean glider observations. Such interactions between frontal currents and topography could help close Southern Ocean overturning.
- Xiaozhou Ruan
- , Andrew F. Thompson
- & Janet Sprintall
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Substantial export of suspended sediment to the global oceans from glacial erosion in Greenland
Approximately 8% of the fluvial suspended sediment exported to the world’s oceans comes from rivers draining the Greenland ice sheet, according to an analysis of satellite imagery. Furthermore, the export is dominated by areas where subglacial erosion is high.
- I. Overeem
- , B. D. Hudson
- & M. Morlighem
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Biological and physical influences on marine snowfall at the equator
Vertical migration of organisms and deep currents control the transport and characteristics of particles at the equator, according to an analysis of current and particle measurements. Particles fluxes are an important part of the ocean carbon cycle.
- R. Kiko
- , A. Biastoch
- & L. Stemmann
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Unexpected winter phytoplankton blooms in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre
Transient winter restratification events can promote phytoplankton blooms in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, according to float data. Typical winter conditions feature a deep mixed layer that limits phytoplankton activity.
- L. Lacour
- , M. Ardyna
- & D. Iudicone
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Review Article |
Metal availability and the expanding network of microbial metabolisms in the Archaean eon
Microbial metabolisms depend on enzymes that contain trace metals. A synthesis of molecular and geochemical data shows that these metabolic pathways evolved alongside changing marine availability of trace metals during the Precambrian.
- Eli K. Moore
- , Benjamin I. Jelen
- & Paul G. Falkowski