Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Convection-permitting simulations suggest that the radiative impact of aerosol–cloud interactions is enhanced by adjustments to large-scale circulation, which increase cloudiness.
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.
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.
Reconstructions of Tibetan Plateau streamflow over the last millennia reveal close associations with dry season vegetation and major population shifts in Southeast Asia.
Wildfires have caused widespread and increasingly severe losses within timber-producing forests in recent decades, according to maps of logging activity and wildfires.
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.
Deeply subducted water may have enabled the exchange of hydrogen and silicon between the mantle and core, according to high-pressure and -temperature experiments.
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.
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.
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.
China has made progress in improving air quality, but current levels of air pollution still have great health impacts. Dr Qiang Zhang, an atmospheric chemist at Tsinghua University, speaks to Nature Geoscience about air pollution control in China, and the challenges and opportunities faced under global environmental change.
India is currently one of the most polluted regions in the world. Dr Chandra Venkataraman, an expert in climate change and air pollution at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, speaks to Nature Geoscience about challenges and opportunities facing air pollution control in India.
Carbonates are key minerals for understanding fluids and their interactions with near-surface environments. Ashley King explores their significance on Earth, and beyond.
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.
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.
The United States currently has modest levels of air pollution after decades of clean air actions. Dr Colette Heald, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaks to Nature Geoscience about air pollution control in the US, and the challenges and opportunities faced under global environmental change.
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.
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.
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.
