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| Open AccessA deep learning-based hybrid model of global terrestrial evaporation
Global evaporation is a key climatic process that remains highly uncertain. Here, the authors shed light on this process with a novel hybrid model that integrates a deep learning representation of ecosystem stress within a physics-based framework.
- Akash Koppa
- , Dominik Rains
- & Diego G. Miralles
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| Open AccessDrying in the low-latitude Atlantic Ocean contributed to terrestrial water storage depletion across Eurasia
Total water storage in Eurasia can be driven by both climate variability and human activities, with the latter suggested as the key factor for water loss. However, here the authors show that drying in the low-latitude Atlantic Ocean is the dominant force in storage depeletion during 2003-2017.
- Zexi Shen
- , Qiang Zhang
- & Wenhuan Wu
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| Open AccessExtremely wet summer events enhance permafrost thaw for multiple years in Siberian tundra
Thawing permafrost releases carbon that serves as a positive feedback on climate warming. Here the authors experimentally demonstrate that rainfall extremes in the Siberian tundra increase permafrost thaw for multiple years, especially if rainfall coincides with warm periods.
- Rúna Í. Magnússon
- , Alexandra Hamm
- & Monique M. P. D. Heijmans
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Article
| Open AccessSuperlinear scaling of riverine biogeochemical function with watershed size
River networks play an important role in biogeochemical processes of the earth system. Here the authors show that cumulative river network function increases faster than watershed size for many biogeochemical processes, particularly at higher river flow, indicating large rivers contribute disproportionately to network function in the Earth System.
- Wilfred M. Wollheim
- , Tamara K. Harms
- & Jacques C. Finlay
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| Open AccessDeep learning shows declining groundwater levels in Germany until 2100 due to climate change
Future groundwater levels in Germany are expected to decrease considerably under the influence of changing climate, exacerbating the trends and patterns already occurring. Simulations also show substantially reduced effects under stringent mitigation scenarios.
- Andreas Wunsch
- , Tanja Liesch
- & Stefan Broda
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| Open AccessAccelerating flash droughts induced by the joint influence of soil moisture depletion and atmospheric aridity
The occurrence of flash droughts has attracted widespread attention due to their rapid onset. Here, the authors find that the joint influence of soil moisture depletion and atmospheric aridity further accelerates the rapid onset of flash droughts.
- Yamin Qing
- , Shuo Wang
- & Zong-Liang Yang
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| Open AccessUnexpectedly minor nitrous oxide emissions from fluvial networks draining permafrost catchments of the East Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Permafrost soils can be substantial sources of nitrous oxide (N2O) to the atmosphere, but no data exist on the N2O footprints of permafrost rivers. Here, the authors show that alpine permafrost rivers are unexpectedly small sources of atmospheric N2O at present.
- Liwei Zhang
- , Sibo Zhang
- & Emily H. Stanley
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| Open AccessCompetition for water induced by transnational land acquisitions for agriculture
Water scarcity associated with large-scale land acquisitions is exacerbated by adoption of water-intensive crops and expansion of irrigation, which in turn increases rival water uses.
- Davide Danilo Chiarelli
- , Paolo D’Odorico
- & Maria Cristina Rulli
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| Open AccessThe sensitivity of simulated streamflow to individual hydrologic processes across North America
This work investigates the sensitivity of streamflow simulations to individual hydrologic processes at 3316 locations across North America, revealing common sensitivities across watersheds.
- Juliane Mai
- , James R. Craig
- & Richard Arsenault
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Article
| Open AccessHotspots for social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss
This work identifies the world’s most vulnerable basins to social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss: a set of 168 hotspot basins for global prioritization that encompass 1.5 billion people, 17% of global food crops, 13% of global GDP, and hundreds of significant wetlands.
- Xander Huggins
- , Tom Gleeson
- & James S. Famiglietti
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| Open AccessGlobally elevated chemical weathering rates beneath glaciers
Global glacial chemical denudation is one of the largest contributors to global elemental cycles and, amplified by climate warming, will significantly impact nutrient loads in downstream ecosystems.
- Xiangying Li
- , Ninglian Wang
- & Guoyu Li
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| Open AccessLand transpiration-evaporation partitioning errors responsible for modeled summertime warm bias in the central United States
Summertime warm bias in the central United States persists in Earth System Models. This bias is dominated by land physics related to transpiration and evaporation partitioning. Improved land physics can constrain projected climate uncertainty.
- Jianzhi Dong
- , Fangni Lei
- & Wade T. Crow
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Article
| Open AccessBedform segregation and locking increase storage of natural and synthetic particles in rivers
Here the authors show that hyporheic flow, bed morphology, and bed stability are intimately related, and that this relationship is expressed as distinct locked and segregated states of bedform dynamics, which carries implications for river system behavior in general and the storage of carbon, nutrients, and contaminants in particular.
- J. Dallmann
- , C. B. Phillips
- & A. I. Packman
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| Open AccessComparison of potential drinking water source contamination across one hundred U.S. cities
In the U.S. today nearly no surface waters are drinkable without treatment. Here, the authors demonstrate that four-fifths of cities that withdraw surface water are supplying water that includes a portion of treated wastewater, concentrated in the Midwest, the South, and Texas.
- Sean W. D. Turner
- , Jennie S. Rice
- & Landon Marston
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| Open AccessStable isotopes in global lakes integrate catchment and climatic controls on evaporation
An isotope synthesis of 1257 global lakes revealed on average 20% of inflow is lost to evaporation, but 10% of Earth’s lakes show extreme evaporative losses. Stable water isotope monitoring is an effective way to detect comparative climatic and catchment-scale impacts on lake water-balance budgets.
- Yuliya Vystavna
- , Astrid Harjung
- & Leonard I. Wassenaar
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| Open AccessVanishing weekly hydropeaking cycles in American and Canadian rivers
Rapid sub-daily and weekly fluctuations in streamflow are known as hydropeaking. Here, the authors apply a new “weekly hydropeaking index” (WHI) to streamflow data from 500 gauges across the USA and Canada and find that the strength of WHI peaked in the mid-20th century and has been declining through the 2010s.
- Stephen J. Déry
- , Marco A. Hernández-Henríquez
- & Tara J. Troy
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| Open AccessRecent changes to Arctic river discharge
The authors combine satellite data with hydrologic models to investigate recent changes in pan-Arctic river discharge magnitude, trends, and seasonality for nearly half a million rivers. They reveal that these rivers likely exported 3-17% more water to the global ocean than previously thought from 1984-2018.
- Dongmei Feng
- , Colin J. Gleason
- & Yuta Ishitsuka
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| Open AccessAutumn destabilization of deep porewater CO2 store in a northern peatland driven by turbulent diffusion
The CO2 stored in deep peat porewater is viewed as a fixed component of peatland C cycling. Here, the authors reveal a hitherto unknown hydro-physical process that results in sudden losses from this CO2 store every autumn.
- A. Campeau
- , D. Vachon
- & M. B. Wallin
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| Open AccessThe role of cyclonic activity in tropical temperature-rainfall scaling
Thermodynamically, rainfall events are expected to become stronger in a warming climate. Here, the authors demonstrate the importance of dynamical aspects to the temperature-rainfall scaling by quantifying the influence of cyclonic activity that leads to negative scaling over large parts of the tropical oceans.
- Dominik Traxl
- , Niklas Boers
- & Bodo Bookhagen
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| Open AccessGlobal predictions of primary soil salinization under changing climate in the 21st century
Excess salt accumulation in the root zone causes soil salinization influencing soil health, biodiversity and food security. Authors used machine learning algorithms to predict global scale soil salinization under changing climate in the 21st century.
- Amirhossein Hassani
- , Adisa Azapagic
- & Nima Shokri
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| Open AccessGlobal distribution, trends, and drivers of flash drought occurrence
Flash droughts can have devastating impacts but are notoriously difficult to predict. This study identifies global hotspots of flash drought, driven by evaporative demand and precipitation deficits across varying geographic regions and crop-type, providing a framework for flash drought prediction.
- Jordan I. Christian
- , Jeffrey B. Basara
- & Robb M. Randall
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Article
| Open AccessSubglacial discharge controls seasonal variations in the thermal structure of a glacial lake in Patagonia
Thermal conditions and circulation near glacier fronts are important to understand the recent rapid retreat of calving glaciers. New observations from a glacial lake suggesting a feedback mechanism between atmospheric warming, glacier front melting and calving for freshwater-terminating glaciers.
- Shin Sugiyama
- , Masahiro Minowa
- & Marius Schaefer
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| Open AccessFrom calibration to parameter learning: Harnessing the scaling effects of big data in geoscientific modeling
Much effort is invested in calibrating model parameters for accurate outputs, but established methods can be inefficient and generic. By learning from big dataset, a new differentiable framework for model parameterization outperforms state-of-the-art methods, produce more physically-coherent results, using a fraction of the training data, computational power, and time. The method promotes a deep integration of machine learning with process-based geoscientific models.
- Wen-Ping Tsai
- , Dapeng Feng
- & Chaopeng Shen
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| Open AccessCollaborative management of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam increases economic benefits and resilience
Integrating river system and economy-wide models in a dynamic, iterative, bidirectional fashion allows assessing some economic impacts of interventions in river systems. Here the authors use this framework to compare water resources management strategies for the Nile in a quest for efficient use of the river’s limited and stressed water resources.
- Mohammed Basheer
- , Victor Nechifor
- & Julien J. Harou
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| Open AccessSustainable irrigation based on co-regulation of soil water supply and atmospheric evaporative demand
Irrigation is the most important use of water. A newly developed irrigation management scheme leads to a significant reduction in water use and increase in economic gains while maintaining crop yields, presenting opportunities for real-world impacts under current and future climate conditions.
- Jingwen Zhang
- , Kaiyu Guan
- & Grace L. Miner
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Article
| Open AccessCO2, nitrogen deposition and a discontinuous climate response drive water use efficiency in global forests
Water use efficiency is a key measure of plant responses to climate change. Here, the authors investigate its control by CO2, nitrogen deposition, and water availability using a global tree-ring dataset. They find an aridity threshold and quantify changes in control over the past 50 years.
- Mark A. Adams
- , Thomas N. Buckley
- & Tarryn L. Turnbull
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| Open AccessIrrigated areas drive irrigation water withdrawals
The global water demands of irrigated agriculture are estimated through country surveys or through hydrological models, but both approaches are taxing. Here, the authors show that they can simply be estimated as a function of irrigated areas.
- Arnald Puy
- , Emanuele Borgonovo
- & Andrea Saltelli
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| Open AccessPast and future trends of Egypt’s water consumption and its sources
A historical reconstruction of water use in Egypt shows the change in relative use of Nile water versus virtual water import, especially in the highly consumptive agriculture sector. A range of future projections of water demand are offered based on several plausible socioeconomic scenarios.
- Catherine A. Nikiel
- & Elfatih A. B. Eltahir
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Article
| Open AccessCommon irrigation drivers of freshwater salinisation in river basins worldwide
Freshwater salinisation is a growing water quality problem, but impacts and drivers across regional to global scales have been lacking. A new assessment of inter-regional freshwater salinisation demonstrates the importance of irrigation as a driver of salinisation.
- Josefin Thorslund
- , Marc F. P. Bierkens
- & Michelle T. H. van Vliet
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| Open AccessSolar energy and regional coordination as a feasible alternative to large hydropower in Southeast Asia
Hydropower dams in the Lower Mekong basin have profound impact on the riverine ecosystems. Here the authors use strategic dam planning and power system modelling to show that there are economically and technically feasible alternatives to these dams with solar energy and power trading.
- Kais Siala
- , Afm Kamal Chowdhury
- & Stefano Galelli
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| Open AccessStorage and export of microbial biomass across the western Greenland Ice Sheet
Microbes that colonise ice sheet surfaces are important to the carbon cycle, but their biomass and transport remains unquantified. Here, the authors reveal substantial microbial carbon fluxes across Greenland’s ice surface, in quantities that may sustain subglacial heterotrophs and fuel methanogenesis.
- T. D. L. Irvine-Fynn
- , A. Edwards
- & A. Hubbard
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| Open AccessObserved increasing water constraint on vegetation growth over the last three decades
Jiao et al. conducted a comprehensive evaluation of changes in water constraint on vegetation growth in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere between 1982 and 2015. They document a significant increase in vegetation water constraint over the last three decades.
- Wenzhe Jiao
- , Lixin Wang
- & Paolo D’Odorico
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| Open AccessWhen timing matters—misdesigned dam filling impacts hydropower sustainability
Filling of dams, when coinciding with droughts, can lead to severe downstream hydrology and ecology problems. The authors hence here provide a multisectoral perspective, using a dam in Ethiopia as an example, to develop adaptive filling solutions that support decision making, favourable filling timing and an effective filling policy.
- Marta Zaniolo
- , Matteo Giuliani
- & Andrea Castelletti
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| Open AccessHealth and sustainability of glaciers in High Mountain Asia
Glaciers in High Mountain Asia are a key water resource. The authors use remote sensing data and a regional implementation of the continuity equation to quantify glacier ablation and accumulation rates for 2000–2016, and establish current climatic-geometric imbalances that imply strong reductions in ice volume by 2100.
- Evan Miles
- , Michael McCarthy
- & Francesca Pellicciotti
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| Open AccessEvidence of anthropogenic impacts on global drought frequency, duration, and intensity
Most studies have examined the impacts of human-driven climate change on mean or extreme climate variables and have neglected to explore interrelated drought features. Here, the authors show that the presence of human activity has increased the number and maximum length and intensity of drought events across the globe.
- Felicia Chiang
- , Omid Mazdiyasni
- & Amir AghaKouchak
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Article
| Open AccessWildfires increasingly impact western US fluvial networks
The authors investigate the impacts of wildfires on fluvial networks in the western US. They find that wildfires directly impacted ~6% of the total stream length between 1984 and 2014. When longitudinal propagation was included, they estimate that wildfires affected ~11% of the total stream length.
- Grady Ball
- , Peter Regier
- & David Van Horn
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| Open AccessExtreme melt season ice layers reduce firn permeability across Greenland
The long-term impact of extreme surface melt on the Greenland Ice Sheet is poorly constrained. Here the authors use airborne radar to characterize a subsurface refrozen melt layer that formed following extreme melt in 2012, showing that it likely reduced drainage pathways for subsequent melt.
- Riley Culberg
- , Dustin M. Schroeder
- & Winnie Chu
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| Open AccessEvaluating the economic impact of water scarcity in a changing world
The impacts of water scarcity depend on physical basin characteristics and global economic dynamics. Here, the authors show scenario assumptions can yield either highly positive or negative economic impacts due to water scarcity, and the drivers of these impacts are basin-specific and cannot be determined a priori.
- Flannery Dolan
- , Jonathan Lamontagne
- & Jae Edmonds
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| Open AccessVegetation feedback causes delayed ecosystem response to East Asian Summer Monsoon Rainfall during the Holocene
How the East Asian Summer Monsoon has changed over the Holocene has been debated, as some proxy records disagree with each other. Here, the authors suggest that monsoonal rainfall peaked in the early Holocene, while ecosystem responses peaked in the mid-Holocene, explaining the differences between records.
- Jun Cheng
- , Haibin Wu
- & Yaoming Song
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Article
| Open AccessAmagmatic hydrothermal systems on Mars from radiogenic heat
Based on the analysis of chemical maps of Thorium and Potassium derived in the Eridania region on Mars, the authors show how radiogenic heat driven hydrothermal systems may have persisted on Mars.
- Lujendra Ojha
- , Suniti Karunatillake
- & Jacob Buffo
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Article
| Open AccessIrrigation of biomass plantations may globally increase water stress more than climate change
The authors here model how water stress would be affected either by biomass plantations combined with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in a strong climate mitigation scenario (1.5 °C warming in 2100) or by climate impacts in a strong climate change scenario (3 °C warming in 2100).
- Fabian Stenzel
- , Peter Greve
- & Dieter Gerten
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Article
| Open AccessContrasting long-term temperature trends reveal minor changes in projected potential evapotranspiration in the US Midwest
Warming in the US Midwest is believed to increase the water needed to grow crops. This study finds that, on the contrary, due to rising rainfall and minimum temperature, and decreasing maximum temperature, potential crop water demand remains unchanged despite the warming climate.
- Bruno Basso
- , Rafael A. Martinez-Feria
- & Joe T. Ritchie
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| Open AccessEmerging dominance of summer rainfall driving High Arctic terrestrial-aquatic connectivity
Climate warming is causing annual Arctic fluvial energy budgets to shift seasonality from snowmelt-dominated to snowmelt- and rainfall-dominated hydrological regimes, enhancing late summer and fall terrestrial-aquatic connectivity and higher material fluxes.
- C. R. Beel
- , J. K. Heslop
- & S. F. Lamoureux
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| Open AccessContinental-scale analysis of shallow and deep groundwater contributions to streams
Groundwater discharge generates streamflow and influences stream thermal regimes. Classifying more than 1700 streams across the US by using an empirically-based approach the study shows that the vulnerability of streams to stressors depends on the aquifer source-depth of groundwater discharge
- Danielle K. Hare
- , Ashley M. Helton
- & Martin A. Briggs
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| Open AccessRole of dams in reducing global flood exposure under climate change
Global flood risk is assessed in this study; in particular, the authors describe, based on a modeling approach, the positive effect of river dams on mitigating flood hazards to people.
- Julien Boulange
- , Naota Hanasaki
- & Yadu Pokhrel
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Article
| Open AccessGroundwater discharge impacts marine isotope budgets of Li, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba
Groundwater discharge is a mechanism that transports chemicals from inland systems to the ocean, but it has been considered of secondary influence compared to rivers. Here the authors assess the global significance of groundwater discharge, finding that it has a unique and important contribution to ocean chemistry and Earth-system models.
- Kimberley K. Mayfield
- , Anton Eisenhauer
- & Adina Paytan
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| Open AccessStrong hydroclimatic controls on vulnerability to subsurface nitrate contamination across Europe
Excess fertilizer use causes subsurface contamination. Here, the authors conduct an assessment of water quality vulnerability across Europe, finding that 75% of agricultural regions are susceptible to nitrate contamination for least one-third of the year, two times more than using standard estimation procedure.
- R. Kumar
- , F. Heße
- & S. Attinger
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| Open AccessSeven centuries of reconstructed Brahmaputra River discharge demonstrate underestimated high discharge and flood hazard frequency
This study investigates flood hazards of the Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh. Based on a tree ring reconstruction of seasonal river discharge, climate modelling, and historic documentation of flood events, the authors suggest flood hazard risk is underestimated by ~24–38% in the present day compared to the past 700 years.
- Mukund P. Rao
- , Edward R. Cook
- & Peter J. Webster
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| Open AccessNeglecting uncertainties biases house-elevation decisions to manage riverine flood risks
This study investigates the effects of uncertainties on the decision of how high to elevate a house in flood-prone areas. Accounting for several uncertainties suggests avenues on how to improve guidelines from FEMA.
- Mahkameh Zarekarizi
- , Vivek Srikrishnan
- & Klaus Keller