Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Governments may struggle to impose costly polices on vital industries, resulting in a greater need for negative emissions. Here, the authors model a direct air capture crash deployment program, finding it can remove 2.3 GtCO2 yr–1 in 2050, 13–20 GtCO2 yr–1 in 2075, and 570–840 GtCO2 cumulative over 2025–2100.

    • Ryan Hanna
    • , Ahmed Abdulla
    •  & David G. Victor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Constraining the rise in atmospheric oxygen through the early Earth is important to understand the evolution of complex life. Here, the authors find that a major rise in atmospheric oxygen level occurred after the Great Oxidation Event, followed by pO2 within 1% of present atmospheric level through most of the Proterozoic Eon (2.4 to 0.65 Ga).

    • Xiao-Ming Liu
    • , Linda C. Kah
    •  & Robert M. Hazen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nature and evolution of Earth’s crust during the Hadean and Eoarchean is largely unknown due to the lack of preserved material from this period. Here, the authors document a period of crustal rejuvenation between 3.2 and 3.0 Ga, coincident with peak mantle potential temperatures that imply greater degrees of mantle melting and injection of hot mafic-ultramafic magmas into older Hadean-to-Eoarchean felsic crust at this time.

    • C. L. Kirkland
    • , M. I. H. Hartnady
    •  & J. A. Hollis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Burial of organic material in marine sediments can sequester massive amounts of carbon, but the dynamics of this carbon sink are poorly understood. Here the authors investigate the so-called rusty carbon sink in Arctic shelf sediments, finding that organic carbon-iron associations are stable for 1000 s of years.

    • Johan C. Faust
    • , Allyson Tessin
    •  & Christian März

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microplastics have spread across the globe and reached even the most remote locations, but an understanding of their origins remains largely elusive. Here the authors quantify and characterise microplastics across the North Pole, finding that synthetic fibers like polyester are dominant and likely sourced from the Atlantic Ocean.

    • Peter S. Ross
    • , Stephen Chastain
    •  & Bill Williams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors simulate bubble nucleation in silica-rich magma with conditions appropriate for Plinian eruptions. They demonstrate that the gap between decompression rate estimates from bubble number density and independent geospeedometers can be largely closed if nucleation is heterogenous facilitated by magnetite crystals and decompression rate is calculated as time-averaged values.

    • Sahand Hajimirza
    • , Helge M. Gonnermann
    •  & James E. Gardner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wildfires produce aerosols known to impact the climate, but the wider-reaching effects of this biomass burning are poorly constrained in models. Here the authors use a suite of observations from 12 campaigns around the globe to determine that the values used by most climate models overestimate the contribution of biomass burning aerosols.

    • Hunter Brown
    • , Xiaohong Liu
    •  & Duli Chand

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study investigates in the importance of non-fossil fuel NOx emissions in the surface-earth-nitrogen cycle. The study shows how changes of regional human activities directly influence δ15N signatures of deposited NOx to terrestrial environments and that emissions have largely been underestimated.

    • Wei Song
    • , Xue-Yan Liu
    •  & Cong-Qiang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human emissions are thought to have caused an increase in wildfire risk, but how different emission sources contribute is less well known. Here, the authors show that the increase due to greenhouse gas emissions was balanced by aerosol-driven cooling, an effect that is projected to disappear during the 21st century.

    • Danielle Touma
    • , Samantha Stevenson
    •  & Sloan Coats

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanisms that drive highly explosive eruptions of low-viscosity magmas, such as at Sunset Crater volcano, remain uncertain. Here, the authors present evidence for an exsolved CO2 phase ~15 km beneath Sunset Crater that was the critical driver of rapid magma ascent leading to the explosive eruption.

    • Chelsea M. Allison
    • , Kurt Roggensack
    •  & Amanda B. Clarke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Groundwater discharge is a mechanism that transports chemicals from inland systems to the ocean, but it has been considered of secondary influence compared to rivers. Here the authors assess the global significance of groundwater discharge, finding that it has a unique and important contribution to ocean chemistry and Earth-system models.

    • Kimberley K. Mayfield
    • , Anton Eisenhauer
    •  & Adina Paytan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Arctic Ocean is influenced by carbon and nutrients from rivers and erosion, but how this affects phytoplankton productivity is not understood. Here, the authors use a spatio-temporally resolved biogeochemical model to estimate that the input of carbon and nutrients fuels 28–51% of annual Arctic Ocean productivity.

    • Jens Terhaar
    • , Ronny Lauerwald
    •  & Laurent Bopp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The 2012–2016 drought and western pine beetle outbreaks caused unprecedented mortality of ponderosa pine in the Sierra Nevada, California. Here, the authors analyse drone-based data from almost half a million trees and find an interaction between host size and climatic water deficit, with higher mortality for large trees in dry, warm conditions but not in cooler or wetter conditions.

    • Michael J. Koontz
    • , Andrew M. Latimer
    •  & Malcolm P. North

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether disasters spur policy change remains contested. Here, the authors utilize a dataset of 10,976 natural hazard events and multiple disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy indicators across 85 countries over eight years to show that frequency and severity factors are unassociated with improved DRR policy.

    • Daniel Nohrstedt
    • , Maurizio Mazzoleni
    •  & Giuliano Di Baldassarre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Seasonally averaged energy input into the ionosphere from geospace is generally considered to be symmetric. Here, the authors show preference for electromagnetic energy input at 450 km altitude into the northern hemisphere, on both the dayside and the nightside, when averaged over season.

    • I. P. Pakhotin
    • , I. R. Mann
    •  & D. J. Knudsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of mosquito populations using pesticides is important for malaria elimination, but effects of pesticides on humans aren’t well understood. Here, Prahl et al. show in a cohort of pregnant Ugandan women and their infants that household spraying with bendiocarb affects the fetal immune system and response to vaccination in infancy.

    • Mary Prahl
    • , Pamela Odorizzi
    •  & Margaret E. Feeney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Grasslands, and the livestock that live there, are dynamic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, but what controls these fluxes remains poorly characterized. Here the authors show that on the global level, grasslands are climate neutral owing to the cancelling effects of managed vs. natural systems.

    • Jinfeng Chang
    • , Philippe Ciais
    •  & Dan Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ice arches that form along Nares Strait, which separates Greenland and Ellesmere Island, act to reduce the export of thick multi-year ice out of the Arctic. Here, we show that there has been a recent trend towards shorter duration arch formation that has resulted in enhanced transport of ice along the strait.

    • G. W. K. Moore
    • , S. E. L. Howell
    •  & K. McNeil

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Amazonian Dark Earth is soil that has had mysteriously high fertility since ancient times, despite the fact that surrounding soils have very low nutrients. Here the authors’ use of isotope reconstructions indicate that these soils predate human settlement and could have alluvial and burning origins.

    • Lucas C. R. Silva
    • , Rodrigo Studart Corrêa
    •  & Roberto Ventura Santos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some algae produce compounds called alkenones that can reconstruct sea surface temperature through geological time, but in high latitudes unknown species complicate use of this proxy. Here the authors find a lineage of sea ice algae that produces alkenones and can be used as a paleo-sensor for sea ice abundance.

    • Karen Jiaxi Wang
    • , Yongsong Huang
    •  & Patricia Cabedo-Sanz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global energy transformation requires quantifying the "price of energy" and studying its evolution. Here the authors present a predictive framework that calculates the average US price of energy, estimating future energy demands for up to four years with excellent accuracy, designing and optimizing energy and monetary policies.

    • Stefanos G. Baratsas
    • , Alexander M. Niziolek
    •  & Efstratios N. Pistikopoulos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether body size affects community assembly mechanisms of soil biota. Here, the authors analyse soil microbial and nematode communities sampled along a 4000-km transect in China and global soil microbiome data to show that bacterial assembly is governed by high dispersal, whereas larger taxa are more influenced by deterministic processes.

    • Lu Luan
    • , Yuji Jiang
    •  & Bo Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The potential contribution of Greenland Ice Sheet to sea level rise in the future is known to be substantial. Here, the authors undertake new modelling showing that the Greenland Ice Sheet sea level rise contribution is 7.9 cm more using the CMIP6 SSP585 scenario compared to CMIP5 using multiple RCP8.5 simulations.

    • Stefan Hofer
    • , Charlotte Lang
    •  & Xavier Fettweis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions not only amplify the global climate crisis, but cause damage currently unaccounted for by food prices. Here the authors show the calculation of prices with internalized climate costs for food categories and production systems, revealing strong market distortions.

    • Maximilian Pieper
    • , Amelie Michalke
    •  & Tobias Gaugler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gender inequality increases vulnerability to climate change impacts and reduces societies’ adaptive capacity. Here the authors show how gender inequality may evolve in the future in five scenarios of socioeconomic development and highlight the importance of incorporating gender inequality in climate change research and policy.

    • Marina Andrijevic
    • , Jesus Crespo Cuaresma
    •  & Carl-Friedrich Schleussner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite growing interest in environmental metabolomics, we lack conceptual frameworks for considering how metabolites vary across space and time in ecological systems. Here, the authors apply (species) community assembly concepts to metabolomics data, offering a way forward in understanding the assembly of metabolite assemblages.

    • Robert E. Danczak
    • , Rosalie K. Chu
    •  & James C. Stegen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Randomised controlled experiments are the gold standard for scientific inference, but environmental and social scientists often rely on different study designs. Here the authors analyse the use of six common study designs in the fields of biodiversity conservation and social intervention, and quantify the biases in their estimates.

    • Alec P. Christie
    • , David Abecasis
    •  & William J. Sutherland

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current inequality and market consumption modelling appears to be subjective. Here the authors combined all three axes of poverty modelling - Engel-Krishnakumar’s microeconomics, Aoki-Chattopadhyay’s mathematical precept and found that multivariate construction is a key component of economic data analysis, implying all modes of income and expenditure need to be considered to arrive at a proper weighted prediction of poverty.

    • Amit K. Chattopadhyay
    • , T. Krishna Kumar
    •  & Iain Rice

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Iron minerals trap carbon in permafrost, preventing microbial degradation and release to the atmosphere as CO2, but the stability of this carbon as permafrost thaws is unclear. Here the authors use nanoscale analyses to show that thaw conditions stimulate Fe-reducing bacteria that trigger carbon release.

    • Monique S. Patzner
    • , Carsten W. Mueller
    •  & Casey Bryce

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Excess fertilizer use causes subsurface contamination. Here, the authors conduct an assessment of water quality vulnerability across Europe, finding that 75% of agricultural regions are susceptible to nitrate contamination for least one-third of the year, two times more than using standard estimation procedure.

    • R. Kumar
    • , F. Heße
    •  & S. Attinger

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Arctic research faces unprecedented disruptions due to COVID-19. This ‘pause’ gives an opportunity to reflect on the current state and the future of Arctic science and move towards a more resilient, thus equitable, coordinated, safe and locally-embedded Arctic research enterprise. Arctic science has been greatly affected by COVID-19. This comment looks forward to how Arctic science could be conducted in the future.

    • Andrey N. Petrov
    • , Larry D. Hinzman
    •  & Alona Yefimenko

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Large-scale meat production can have negative impacts on public health, the environment and animal welfare. In this Review, the authors consider plant-based and cell-based approaches to meat production and the challenges they face.

    • Natalie R. Rubio
    • , Ning Xiang
    •  & David L. Kaplan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change and local anthropogenic stressors threaten the persistence of coral reefs. Here the authors track coral bleaching over the course of a heatwave and find that some colonies recovered from bleaching while high temperatures persisted, but only at sites lacking in other strong anthropogenic stressors.

    • Danielle C. Claar
    • , Samuel Starko
    •  & Julia K. Baum

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This manuscript tackles the origin of organic molecules in carbonaceous meteorites. Identifying hexamethylenetetramine in three carbonaceous meteorites, the authors propose formation from ammonia and formaldehyde by photochemical and thermal reactions in the interstellar medium, followed by the incorporation into planetary systems.

    • Yasuhiro Oba
    • , Yoshinori Takano
    •  & Shogo Tachibana

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multiple co-occurring stressors may affect food webs in ways that are not predictable by studying individual stressors. Here the authors apply a network interaction model to a marine food web in the Arctic, finding that nonlinear interactions between stressors can more than double the risk of population collapse compared to simpler simulations.

    • K. R. Arrigo
    • , Gert L. van Dijken
    •  & R. M. Bailey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been hypothesized that domestication can occur through the ‘commensal pathway’ in which the domesticate takes advantage of a niche created as a byproduct by the domesticator. Here, Brooker et al. provide evidence for a commensal domestication process between longfin damselfish and mysid shrimps.

    • Rohan M. Brooker
    • , Jordan M. Casey
    •  & William E. Feeney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fate of subducted CO2 remains debated, with estimates mainly from numerical predictions varying from wholesale decarbonation of the shallow subducting slab to massive deep subduction of CO2. Here, the authors present field-based data and show that ~40% to ~65% of the CO2 in subducting crust is released via metamorphic decarbonation reactions at forearc depths.

    • E. M. Stewart
    •  & Jay J. Ague

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How and why the ‘Snowball Earth’ occurred during the Cryogenian period is debated. Here, the authors show that the cryogenian ocean hosted diminished tidal amplitudes and associated energy dissipation rates, reaching 10-50% of today’s rates thus perhaps contributing to prolonged glaciations.

    • J. A. Mattias Green
    • , Hannah S. Davies
    •  & Christopher Scotese

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrocatalytic processes are promising for automated and scalable synthesis of singlet oxygen, but they are energy- and chemical-intensive. Here the authors present a Janus electrocatalytic membrane that selectively produces singlet oxygen with low energy consumption and free of chemical precursors.

    • Yumeng Zhao
    • , Meng Sun
    •  & Menachem Elimelech

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A Southern Ocean influences on the carbon cycle is considered a key component of deglacial changes. Here, the authors show spatial differences in glacial Southern Ocean carbon storage that dissipated rapidly 14.6 kyr ago, revealing a South Indian Ocean contribution to rapid deglacial atmospheric CO2 increases.

    • Julia Gottschalk
    • , Elisabeth Michel
    •  & Samuel L. Jaccard

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