Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conserving mangrove biodiversity has numerous co-benefits, including climate change-mitigation. Here the authors demonstrate that blue carbon storage in mangroves can be best sustained by combining site-specific dominant species with other species with contrasting functional traits.

    • Md Mizanur Rahman
    • , Martin Zimmer
    •  & Ming Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The downhill motion of soils on hillslopes is not well understood. Here, the authors present laboratory experiments and show that hillslopes are made perpetually fragile by environmental perturbations that prevent them from stabilizing.

    • Nakul S. Deshpande
    • , David J. Furbish
    •  & Douglas J. Jerolmack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Afforestation is an important greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategy but the efficacy of commercial (harvested) forestry is disputed. Here the authors apply dynamic life cycle assessment to show that new commercial conifer forests can achieve up to 269% more GHG mitigation than semi-natural forests, over 100 years.

    • Eilidh J. Forster
    • , John R. Healey
    •  & David Styles

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aviation contributes to climate change and ways to reduce its emissions are widely debated. Here, the authors assess the effects of technology improvements and the use of sustainable aviation fuels and find that even when these are considered aviation is unlikely to meet emissions goals in line with the Paris Agreement.

    • Volker Grewe
    • , Arvind Gangoli Rao
    •  & Katrin Dahlmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reprocessed data from satellite altimetry show that the mean significant wave height decreases globally by 22% on average from 30 km to 3 km from the coast. By combining these data with wave period from reanalysis, we estimate a mean reduction of 38% concerning the mean wave energy flux.

    • Marcello Passaro
    • , Mark A. Hemer
    •  & Florian Seitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the uncertainties associated with urban heat wave (UHW) projection is critical for local actions to mitigate extreme heat risks in cities. Here, the authors show that choices of model structural design contribute a large proportion of the uncertainty in projecting UHWs under climate change.

    • Zhonghua Zheng
    • , Lei Zhao
    •  & Keith W. Oleson

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Whether or not a city achieves absolute sustainability is difficult to assess with existing frameworks. Here the authors, in a review, show that a further integration of consumption-based accounting and benchmarking is necessary to aid the monitoring and assessment of Sustainable Development Goals in cities.

    • Thomas Wiedmann
    •  & Cameron Allen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As sea levels rise, coasts are being increasingly  threatened by overtopping caused by the combination of sea level rise, storm surge and wave runup. Here the authors find that global coastal overtopping has increased by over 50% in the last two decades, and under a RCP 8.5 scenario this could increase up to 50 times by 2100 compared to today.

    • Rafael Almar
    • , Roshanka Ranasinghe
    •  & Elodie Kestenare

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Advanced copper supply chain modeling shows China’s new waste trade policy may increase pollution, while limiting other low-value imports reverses this trend. Here the authors show that recycling is vulnerable to supply chain shocks, requiring investment during recoveries to promote a circular economy.

    • John Ryter
    • , Xinkai Fu
    •  & Elsa A. Olivetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    North Atlantic deep water (NADW) formation influences the climate and carbon cycle, but the contribution of Arctic waters is difficult to constrain. Here the authors use Pa/Th proxy measurements to determine the amount of Arctic Ocean water that flows through the Fram Strait and contributes to NADW.

    • Lauren E. Kipp
    • , Jerry F. McManus
    •  & Markus Kienast

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) decline in future climate change are uncertain. Here the authors show that the inter-model spread in the AMOC response in global climate models amplify uncertainties in the projections of temperature, rainfall and the jet-stream.

    • Katinka Bellomo
    • , Michela Angeloni
    •  & Jost von Hardenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Satellite-based estimates of radiative forcing by aerosol–cloud interactions are consistently smaller than those from global models, hampering accurate projections of future climate change. Here, the authors show that the discrepancy can be substantially reduced by correcting sampling biases induced by inherent limitations of satellite measurements.

    • Hailing Jia
    • , Xiaoyan Ma
    •  & Johannes Quaas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    European Union’s vulnerability to climate change stretches far beyond its borders. Here the authors find that more than 44% of the EU agricultural imports will become highly vulnerable to drought in future because of climate change.

    • Ertug Ercin
    • , Ted I. E. Veldkamp
    •  & Johannes Hunink

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present a high-resolution palaeomagnetic record for a Late Cretaceous limestone in Italy. They claim that their record robustly shows a ~12° true polar wander oscillation between 86 and 78 Ma, with the greatest excursion at 84–82 Ma.

    • Ross N. Mitchell
    • , Christopher J. Thissen
    •  & Joseph L. Kirschvink

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is one of the most important environmental health risk factors in many regions. Here, the authors present an assessment of PM2.5 emission sources and the related health impacts across global to sub-national scales and find that over 1 million deaths were avoidable in 2017 by eliminating PM2.5 mass associated with fossil fuel combustion emissions.

    • Erin E. McDuffie
    • , Randall V. Martin
    •  & Michael Brauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of meteorological factors in SARS-COV-2 transmission is not well understood. Here, the authors use county-level data from the United States to the end of 2020 and find evidence of a moderate association between increased transmissibility and cold, dry weather and low ultraviolet radiation.

    • Yiqun Ma
    • , Sen Pei
    •  & Kai Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether climate driven phenological shifts of tundra plants are consistent across the plant growing season. Here the authors analyse data from a network of field warming experiments in Arctic and alpine tundra, finding that warming differentially affects the timing and duration of reproductive and vegetative phenology.

    • Courtney G. Collins
    • , Sarah C. Elmendorf
    •  & Katharine N. Suding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superbolts are powerful, rare lightning events. Here, the authors show simultaneous satellite and ground measurements of a superbolt, and demonstrate different properties of superbolts and lightnings.

    • J.-F. Ripoll
    • , T. Farges
    •  & S. Pédeboy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Why Earth’s crust only started becoming widely preserved in the Eoarchaean, 500 Ma after planetary accretion, is poorly understood. Here, the authors document a shift to juvenile magmatic sources in the early Eoarchaean, linking crustal preservation to the formation of stabilising melt-depleted mantle.

    • Jacob A. Mulder
    • , Oliver Nebel
    •  & Timothy J. Ivanic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Social inequalities may be reflected in how ecosystem services are distributed among groups of people. Here the authors estimate the distribution of three ecosystem services across demographic and socioeconomic groups in the US between 2020 and 2100, finding that non-white and lower-income groups disproportionately bear the loss of ecosystem service benefits.

    • Jesse D. Gourevitch
    • , Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez
    •  & Taylor H. Ricketts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A case study of migmatites indicates that the juvenile arc crust underwent a rapid self-recycling process from arc magmatism to erosion and weathering at the surface, then to burial and remelting. Intra-arc thrust fault systems might efficiently promote endogenous recycling.

    • Jun-Yong Li
    • , Ming Tang
    •  & Lin-Sen Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reflective surfaces have been recommended to mitigate urban heat pollution but can be expensive to apply at a large scale. This work shows that applying them to only the upstream half of a neighborhood can lead to disporportionately high cooling benefits relative to cost.

    • Sushobhan Sen
    •  & Lev Khazanovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Models of the viscosity evolution of mantle rocks are central to analyses of postseismic deformation but constraints on underlying physical processes are lacking. Here, the authors present measurements of microscale stress heterogeneity in olivine suggesting that long-range dislocation interactions contribute to viscosity evolution.

    • David Wallis
    • , Lars N. Hansen
    •  & Ricardo A. Lebensohn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment may drive shifts in soil microbial communities. Here, the authors analyse nitrogen and phosphorus addition effects on soil fungi in a distributed grassland experiment across four continents, finding promotion of pathogens, suppression of mutualists, and no shifts in saprotrophs.

    • Ylva Lekberg
    • , Carlos A. Arnillas
    •  & Jeremiah A. Henning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some bacteriophage encode auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) that impact host metabolism and biogeochemical cycling during infection. Here the authors identify hundreds of AMGs in environmental phage encoding sulfur oxidation genes and use their global distribution to infer phage-mediated biogeochemical impacts.

    • Kristopher Kieft
    • , Zhichao Zhou
    •  & Karthik Anantharaman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Melting at the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet is often disregarded as a source of quantifiable mass loss. In this study, the authors find the basal mass loss is equivalent to 8% of the ice sheet’s present imbalance, and that the loss of mass from basal melt is likely to increase in the future.

    • Nanna B. Karlsson
    • , Anne M. Solgaard
    •  & Robert S. Fausto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Benefit-cost analyses of climate policies have generated conflicting assessments; as social welfare is affected by regional heterogeneity. Here the authors show that economically optimal pathways are consistent with climate stabilization but are characterized by persistent economic inequalities due to climate damages.

    • Paolo Gazzotti
    • , Johannes Emmerling
    •  & Massimo Tavoni

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    The ocean supports many livelihoods, but this is currently not sustainable with pressures on the climate and ecosystems. Here, in this perspective, the authors outline the barriers and solutions for financing a sustainable ocean economy.

    • U. Rashid Sumaila
    • , Melissa Walsh
    •  & Junjie Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Primary productivity in the oligotrophic ocean sustains Earth’s ecosystems, but nutrient concentrations are vanishingly low. Here the authors measure nanomolar macronutrient concentrations in the North Pacific and find that net community production is sustained through high rates of phosphorus recycling.

    • Fuminori Hashihama
    • , Ichiro Yasuda
    •  & Masao Ishii

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree rings are a crucial archive for Common Era climate reconstructions, but the degree to which methodological decisions influence outcomes is not well known. Here, the authors show how different approaches taken by 15 different groups influence the ensemble temperature reconstruction from the same data.

    • Ulf Büntgen
    • , Kathy Allen
    •  & Jan Esper

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fate of soil carbon depends on microbial processes, but whether different microbial taxa have individualistic effects on carbon fluxes is unknown. Here the authors use 16 S amplicon sequencing and stable isotopes to show how taxonomic differences influence bacterial respiration and carbon cycling across four ecosystems.

    • Bram W. Stone
    • , Junhui Li
    •  & Bruce A. Hungate

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The middle of the Gulf of Mexico is stratified and highly oligotrophic, yet there are anomalously high fluxes of sinking particulate matter from the euphotic zone. Here the authors show that lateral advection of organic matter supports nitrogen export in the Gulf of Mexico’s open ocean.

    • Thomas B. Kelly
    • , Angela N. Knapp
    •  & Michael R. Stukel

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Water scarcity is a rapidly spreading global challenge but water purification technologies are often not sustainable. Here, the authors review the research on water purification technologies based on protein nanofibrils as a green and affordable solution to alleviate a water crisis.

    • Mohammad Peydayesh
    •  & Raffaele Mezzenga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change is likely to damage economies worldwide. Here the authors show that this strongly reduces incentives to invest causing additional losses, whereas if investors include climate-change mitigation in their action portfolio they can avoid damages for themselves and the global economy.

    • Sven N. Willner
    • , Nicole Glanemann
    •  & Anders Levermann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Open fires can increase heavy exposure to hazardous particulate matters, and thus harm human health, particularly among the vulnerable individuals, such as pregnant women. Here, the authors show an association between maternal exposure to fire smoke and increased risk of pregnancy loss in South Asia.

    • Tao Xue
    • , Guannan Geng
    •  & Tong Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Up to 40% of the ocean’s fixed nitrogen is lost in oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) by anammox, but despite the importance of this process, nitrogen loss patterns in OMZs are difficult to predict. Here the authors show that ammonium release from small particles is a major control of anammox in the Peruvian OMZ.

    • Clarissa Karthäuser
    • , Soeren Ahmerkamp
    •  & Marcel M. M. Kuypers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Earth-system sensitivity (ESS) describes the long-term temperature response for a given change in atmospheric CO2 and, as such, is a crucial parameter to assess future climate change. Here, the authors use a Bayesian model with data from the last 420 Myrs to reduce uncertainties and estimate ESS to be around 3.4 °C.

    • Tony E. Wong
    • , Ying Cui
    •  & Klaus Keller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    China has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality in 2060. Here the authors find a promising option to abate 1.0 Gt CO2-eq yr−1 of carbon emissions at a marginal cost of $69 (t CO2-eq)−1 by retrofitting 222 GW of coal power plants to co-fire with biomass and upgrading to CCS operation across 2836 counties in China.

    • Xiaofan Xing
    • , Rong Wang
    •  & Siqing Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been suggested that sea surface temperatures in the North Tropical Atlantic exert strong influence on the evolution of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here, the authors argue that observed statistics are fully consistent with ENSO driving climate variations in the Atlantic and not vice versa.

    • Wenjun Zhang
    • , Feng Jiang
    •  & Axel Timmermann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individual exposure to heat is associated with adverse health and economic outcomes. Here, the authors show that people of color and people living in poverty bear a disproportionate burden of urban heat exposure in almost all major cities in the continental United States.

    • Angel Hsu
    • , Glenn Sheriff
    •  & Diego Manya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a crucial component of the tropical weather system, but forecasting it has been challenging. Here, the authors present a deep learning bias correction method that significantly improves multi-model forecasts of the MJO amplitude and phase for up to four weeks.

    • H. Kim
    • , Y. G. Ham
    •  & S. W. Son

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Earth and environmental sciences across other nature.com journals