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Sprouting and early growth of plants in wetlands can be inhibited by freeze-thaw cycles via denitrification and reduction of soil nitrogen, according to a temperature-controlled experiment in the Momoge wetland in China.
Trench-parallel ridges on the Rivera plate subducting beneath W Mexico, control upper-plate tectonics and elastic structure, and act as unstable asperities, enabling shallow megathrust seismogenesis, according to seismic imaging and tomographic modeling.
Over much of Africa, the potential for groundwater pumping with the help of photovoltaic energy is constrained by aquifer conditions, and not irradiance, according to continent-wide simulations to map the performance of photovoltaic water pumping systems.
Ice nucleation experiments suggest that the abundant plant protein RuBisCO is an efficient ice nucleating particle in the atmosphere, with analyses of ambient aerosols sampled in Texas confirming its presence and ice nucleating potential in the atmosphere.
The majority of radar measurements of wind speed in tornadoes underestimate the actual wind intensity by measuring regions relatively high above the ground; very low-level radar observations find the strongest winds very close to the ground
At depths of over 500 m, deep groundwater has long residence times and likely contributes less than 0.1% to global streamflow and only sporadically connects with the surface terrestrial water cycle on geological timescales, according to estimates derived from the chloride mass balance approach.
The timing of deformation in ancient shear zones of the Akia Terrane, Greenland, is recorded by the Proterozoic Rb-Sr age of mylonitic biotite which is determined through collision cell laser ablation and inverse thermal history modelling.
Changes in the processes that can generate floods, such as rain falling on wet rather than dry soil, affect the occurrence of regional floods more than changes in extreme rainfall, according to an analysis of flood anomalies observed in Europe combined with a flood process typology.
Stakeholders can use an exploratory and interactive model to investigate relationships, synergies, trade-offs, and sensitivities between key variables in the UK food and agriculture system, which can help them design pathways to reach sustainability objectives.
Freshening and oxygen depletion of the polar deep waters of the Amerasian Basin during the last glacial periods probably resulted in significant carbon burial, according to geochemical analyses of inorganic authigenic carbonates in Arctic Ocean sediments.
In most developed economies where decarbonisation processes are already in place, economic crises have coincided with a peak and subsequently declining emissions as a result of lower carbon and energy intensities, according to a statistical analysis of 45 countries between 1965 and 2019.
Application of biosolids derived from municipal wastewater treatment sludge to agricultural croplands in Nebraska, US elevated microplastic concentrations in runoff water, and could contribute to microplastic contamination of surface waters, suggests a field study in summer 2020.
Imposing policy constraints on biomass supply may not avoid initial net carbon emissions from forest bioenergy, but economic factors can drive long-term climate benefits, according to a market-based economic model that explores 51 pathways of forest bioenergy demand
Volatile loss during the Moon-forming impact can explain the observed depletion trend in Earth’s mantle, according to atomistic simulations of magma ocean degassing.
Natural revegetation of abandoned cropland in biodiversity priority areas and afforestation and growth of bioenergy crop in other areas could achieve a climate change mitigation potential of 0.8–4.0 GtCO2-eq. per year, according to bottom-up estimates based on biomass yields and life-cycle emissions.
Potential for recovery can be estimated from surveys and widely available data, and is more relevant than building damage for identifying vulnerable communities affected by the 2015 Ghorka earthquake in Nepal, according to a data-driven evaluation framework.
Intensified weathering, dust fertilization and biological pump action amplified the global decline in atmospheric CO2 concentrations across the Eocene-Oligocene Transition, according to magnetofossil and geochemical records from the Eastern Equatorial Pacific.
The dry and windy Asian glacials during the mid-Pleistocene transition were probably due to the Northern Hemisphere ice sheet expansion, suggest records of grain size and magnetic susceptibility from the Chinese Loess Plateau and model simulations.
Calcium carbonate sediment production in a seagrass meadow in the Maldives provides substantial quantities of sediments of a suitable size for reef island building, according to analyses of field, satellite, and sedimentological data.
Small microplastics are preferentially retained in Three Gorges Reservoir sediments and the dam likely substantially reduces the microplastic flux in the Yangtze River, according to sedimentary analyses from the upper and lower reaches of the Three Gorges Dam, China between 2008 and 2020.