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Climate change is likely to offset some of the improvements in air quality expected from reductions in pollutant emissions. A comprehensive analysis of future air quality over North America suggests that, on balance, the air will still be cleaner in coming decades.
Estimates of stream and river area have relied on observations at coarse resolution. Consideration of the smallest and most dynamic streams could reveal a greater role for river networks in global biogeochemical cycling than previously thought.
Tracking diffuse, shearing deformation of continents is difficult. Numerical modelling of drainage evolution in the Southern Alps, New Zealand, suggests that rivers can act as dynamic markers of tectonic deformation over geological timescales.
Subtropical high-pressure systems influence atmospheric circulation and global climate. Model simulations and reanalysis data suggest that summertime high pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics will intensify as a result of climate change.
The last glacial period was marked by rapid reorganizations of oceanic and atmospheric circulation. Speleothem records from the Amazon Basin suggest that precipitation variability was linked to these events.
Life on land dates back at least 2.7 billion years, but the effects of this early terrestrial biosphere on biogeochemical cycling are poorly constrained. Marine sulphur data and geochemical modelling suggest that microbial pyrite weathering has transferred a substantial amount of sulphur to the oceans for at least 2.5 billion years.
The North Atlantic Oscillation influences climate in the Arctic region and northern Europe. Reconstructions of circulation patterns associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation from a 5,200-year-long lake sediment record suggest that the atmospheric circulation responded to significant transitions in Northern Hemisphere climate.
Climate change is governed by changes to the global energy balance. A synthesis of the latest observations suggests that more longwave radiation is received at the Earth's surface than previously thought, and that more precipitation is generated.
Stratospheric circulation is known to affect weather in the troposphere. Climate modelling reveals a connection between variations in the stratospheric and North Atlantic ocean circulation over the past 30 years, and demonstrates that the stratosphere is an important component of climate over multidecadal timescales.
Climate model projections of future precipitation extremes in the tropics are highly uncertain. Observations of year-to-year variations in extremes of present-day climate help to narrow down these projections to a rise in extreme rainfall by 6–14% per °C of warming.
Glaciers store and transform organic carbon, which, on release, could support downstream microbial life. An analysis of 26 glaciers in the European Alps suggests that a significant fraction of glacier organic matter is available for microbial consumption.
Seamount chains in the southeast Atlantic Ocean are thought to have formed above plumes sourced from the deep mantle. Dating of lavas erupted along the trails show that the formation and distribution of the seamount chains is also controlled by the motion and structure of the African Plate.
Precipitation extremes increase in intensity over many regions of the globe in simulations of a warming climate, but not always consistently. Observational constraints, together with a close relationship between model responses to interannual variability and climate change, suggest a high sensitivity of tropical extreme precipitation to warming.
The persistence of dendritic drainage patterns implies that rivers reorganize after a tectonic perturbation, preserving no long-term record of that tectonic event. Numerical simulations of the evolution of drainage patterns in the Southern Alps, New Zealand, however, reveal rivers that resist reorganization and thus preserve a record of plate tectonic strain over 10 million years.
Clay minerals on Mars have been interpreted as an indication for a warm, wet early climate. A new hypothesis proposes that the minerals instead formed during brief periods of magmatic degassing, diminishing the prospects for signs of life in these settings.
