Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change is shifting species distribution globally. Here, the authors track four decades of changes in the thermal affinity of 1,817 marine species across European seas, showing that most communities have responded to ongoing ocean warming via increases of warm-water species or decreases of cold-water species.

    • Guillem Chust
    • , Ernesto Villarino
    •  & Martin Lindegren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors show that the deep thermocline and strong stratification of the North Equatorial Current of the western North Pacific cause rapid intensification and maintain tropical cyclones, as with 2018 Mangkhut, the longest Category-5 super typhoon in record.

    • Sok Kuh Kang
    • , Sung-Hun Kim
    •  & Brian Ward

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Climate change and plastic pollution are interconnected global challenges. Rising temperatures and moisture alter plastic characteristics, contributing to waste, microplastic generation, and release of hazardous substances. Urgent attention is essential to comprehend and address these climate-driven effects and their consequences.

    • Xin-Feng Wei
    • , Wei Yang
    •  & Mikael S. Hedenqvist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study identifies the key roles of tides and topographic waves in forming Antarctic bottom water in different regions. The Antarctic coastline is divided into four overflow dynamical regimes, providing guidance for future observations.

    • Xianxian Han
    • , Andrew L. Stewart
    •  & Arnold L. Gordon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Continuous industrialization and human activities have led to severe water quality deterioration. Here, a structure-function integrated system is developed by Douglas fir wood inspired metamaterial catalysts with robust and high throughput water purification performances.

    • Lei Zhang
    • , Hanwen Liu
    •  & Jian Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study reveals that in the Earth’s mid-mantle, ferropericlase (the second most abundant mineral) undergoes a major electronic reconfiguration. At the base of the mantle, an enrichment in silica may represent a crystallised ancient magma ocean.

    • Laura Cobden
    • , Jingyi Zhuang
    •  & Jeroen Tromp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A new study shows that deforestation of Amazon mangroves releases up to four times more carbon dioxide when compared to emissions arising from terrestrial biomes. This study set a foundation for the use of mangroves in Brazil’s international policy agreements.

    • Angelo F. Bernardino
    • , Ana Carolina A. Mazzuco
    •  & J. Boone Kauffman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Riparian vegetation densities critically mediate the morphodynamics of meandering rivers: plants slow the rate at which channels move laterally and reinforce the key, first-order control that curvature exerts on meander planform evolution.

    • Alvise Finotello
    • , Alessandro Ielpi
    •  & Andrea D’Alpaos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is no universal model for large earthquake recurrence, and an ensemble forecasting approach is desirable when dealing with paleoseismic records with few data points and large measurement errors.

    • Ting Wang
    • , Jonathan D. Griffin
    •  & Jie Kang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spreading-rate dependent magmatism plays a central role in controlling the global systematics of oceanic transform fault topography, according to geodynamic modelling.

    • Xiaochuan Tian
    • , Mark D. Behn
    •  & Anton A. Popov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors combine climate simulations with observations to estimate carbon budgets which are better constrained and find they are more than 10% larger than the mean value from CMIP6 models.

    • Peter M. Cox
    • , Mark S. Williamson
    •  & Rebecca M. Varney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The geographic spread of plants exerted an important control over ancient climate change by modifying continental weathering and carbon burial rates. This effect is investigated using a new coupled vegetation-climate-biogeochemical model.

    • Khushboo Gurung
    • , Katie J. Field
    •  & Benjamin J. W. Mills

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A new carbonate phase calcium carbonate hemihydrate was recently discovered and characterized, but exclusively as a synthetic material. Here the authors find that it exists in nature, albeit transiently, on the surface of growing nacre and coral skeletons, and show that 2 amorphous and 2 metastable crystalline nano-minerals form before biominerals settle into their stable crystals.

    • Connor A. Schmidt
    • , Eric Tambutté
    •  & Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protected areas are meant to defend species from direct exploitation and habitat loss, but they might also reduce climate change impacts. Here, the authors show that marine protected areas mitigate the impacts of marine heatwaves on reef fish communities.

    • Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi
    • , Amanda E. Bates
    •  & Eneko Aspillaga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tsunami generated by pyroclastic flows are recorded in near-source condition. Waveform remains stable for different velocity and geometry of the sliding body. Volume is calculated from tsunami height. Tsunami occurring near populated coast can be detected automatically in real-time.

    • M. Ripepe
    •  & G. Lacanna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional blue denim dyeing has both environmental and health-related consequences. Here, Bidart et al. use enzyme engineering to develop a viable method for the bulk production of indican and demonstrate dying processes which could significantly reduce the negative consequences of this billion-dollar industry.

    • Gonzalo Nahuel Bidart
    • , David Teze
    •  & Ditte Hededam Welner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Herbicides used in terrestrial environments pollute coastal ecosystems. Here, the authors analyse the presence of 32 herbicides at 661 bays and gulfs worldwide from 1990 to 2022, showing how under current herbicide stress, phytoplankton primary productivity was inhibited by more than 5% at 25%.

    • Liqiang Yang
    • , Xiaotong He
    •  & Yongyu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Speleothems from the Savanna region in Brazil documents the occurrence of an unprecedented long-term drought driven by anthropogenic forcing. Staring in the 1970´s the current drought is the most severe that has struck the region in the past 700 years.

    • Nicolas Misailidis Stríkis
    • , Plácido Fabrício Silva Melo Buarque
    •  & Valdir Felipe Novello

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors trace lateral magma movement in a ~ 3700 km long fracture on Venus. This Great Dyke of Atla Regio is the longest so-far traced on Venus (and in the solar system) and belongs to a giant radiating dyke swarm of the Ozza Mons volcano of the Atla Regio plume.

    • H. El Bilali
    •  & R. E. Ernst

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral diseases are commonly sediment-associated. Here the authors conduct a field experiment in French Polynesia and Palmyra Atoll showing that removal of sea cucumbers that clean reef sediments while feeding increases coral disease.

    • Cody S. Clements
    • , Zoe A. Pratte
    •  & Mark E. Hay

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phosphate-solubilising microorganisms can contribute to reduce the use of P fertiliser. Here, the authors use two artificial selection methods, environmental perturbation and propagation, to build phosphate-solubilising communities that retain P-solubilising capacity in hydroponic systems.

    • Lena Faller
    • , Marcio F. A. Leite
    •  & Eiko E. Kuramae

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydroxyl radicals (OH) determine the tropospheric self-cleansing capacity. This study reveals that reactive aldehyde chemistry plays an important role in OH formation and helps narrow the gap between ambient OH observations and model simulations.

    • Xinping Yang
    • , Haichao Wang
    •  & Yuanhang Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors use rain gauge measurements to derive data-driven estimates of how climate change impacts extreme rain in the US. They find that the expected rainfall increases driven by burning fossil fuels are offset with drying caused by anthropogenic aerosols.

    • Mark D. Risser
    • , William D. Collins
    •  & Paul A. Ullrich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is elusive to manufacture room temperature phosphorescent (RTP) materials through effective and ambient processing approaches. Here the authors report the production of photocured RTP materials using lignosulfonate to act as RTP chromophore and photoinitiator, achieving easy preparation, low cost and good performance.

    • Hongda Guo
    • , Mengnan Cao
    •  & Zhijun Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In face-to-face double subduction, the development of subduction in the younger system restrains subduction in the older system and results in plate motion reorganisation, according to geodynamic modelling.

    • Kuidi Zhang
    • , Jie Liao
    •  & Taras Gerya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For satellite data, noisy observations can often be ignored in favour of smooth trends and signals. Here, the authors developed a method to quantify the complexity of chlorophyll-α time series on a global scale, which led to the discovery of greater differences among regions than previously recognized.

    • Vitul Agarwal
    • , Jonathan Chávez-Casillas
    •  & Colleen B. Mouw

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New alkenone results and existing temperature records together show contrasting Holocene temperature trends and thus display spatial patterns over mid-latitude Eurasia, with implications for the Holocene temperature conundrum.

    • Jiawei Jiang
    • , Bowen Meng
    •  & Zhonghui Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Tibetan Plateau is the largest plateau in the world and hosts a variety of aquatic ecosystems. Here, the authors present a gene and genome catalogue of Tibetan Plateau aquatic microbiomes, greatly expanding known taxonomic and functional diversity for the region and giving insights into its microbial biogeography.

    • Mingyue Cheng
    • , Shuai Luo
    •  & Kang Ning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Over 13 years, coastal Louisiana’s wetlands have been endangered by a sea-level rise rate comparable to what is expected later this century. While the rate may not persist over the next few decades, this natural experiment indicates a 75% drowning of these wetlands by 2070 under current carbon emissions.

    • Guandong Li
    • , Torbjörn E. Törnqvist
    •  & Sönke Dangendorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Xu and colleagues find that the average trophic level of aquatic food items in the human diet is declining (from 3.42 to 3.18) because of the considerable increase in low-trophic level aquaculture species output relative to that of capture fisheries since 1976. Additionally they find that trade has contributed to increasing the availability and trophic level of aquatic foods in >60% of the world’s countries.

    • Kangshun Zhao
    • , Steven D. Gaines
    •  & Jun Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma created in laboratory are useful to understand the properties of atmospheric and space plasma. Here the authors report a laboratory plasma experiment in a dipole magnetic field to show the excitation of chirping whistler waves, i.e. chorus emission.

    • Haruhiko Saitoh
    • , Masaki Nishiura
    •  & Zensho Yoshida

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