Articles in 2018

Atmospheric levels of chloroform, an ozone-depleting substance not part of the Montreal Protocol, have risen. The increase may be attributable to industrial emissions in Eastern China.

Atmospheric levels of chloroform increased after 2010, as a result of emissions in eastern China, according to analyses of measurements and inverse modelling.

Mangrove canopy heights vary around the world in response to rain, storms and human activities, suggests a global analysis of mangrove canopy height. How tall the trees are matters for estimating global mangrove carbon storage.

Machine learning allows geoscientists to embrace data at scales greater than ever before. We are excited to see what this innovative tool can teach us.

Mangrove canopy height varies strongly around the globe in response to climatic factors, according to a global analysis of remote sensing and field data.

Delivery of fossil carbon to the oceans strongly increased about 15 kyr after the onset of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum as a result of oxidation of sedimentary carbon, suggests an analysis of geochemical measurements with a biomarker mixing model.

Seismic data during the time interval between larger earthquakes could contain information about fault displacements and potential for future failure, suggest analyses of data from laboratory and real-world slow-slip earthquakes using machine-learning techniques.

Stressors such as large-scale damming, hydrological change, pollution, the introduction of non-native species and sediment mining are challenging the integrity and future of large rivers, according to a synthesis of the literature on the 32 biggest rivers.

Continuous seismic signal, filtered out by machine-learning methods, could help infer fault displacement in the Cascadia subduction zone.

Both fast and slow earthquakes are preceded by micro-failure events that radiate energy. According to machine learning, these events can foretell catastrophic failure in laboratory experiment earthquakes.

Glacial meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet causes buoyancy-driven upwelling of nutrient-rich, subtropical waters from depth to the continental shelf. This nutrient transport may exceed the direct ice sheet inputs, according to geochemical analyses of transect samples from Sermilik Fjord.

Changes in glacier speed in High Mountain Asia are closely linked to mass balance through gravitational driving stress, and largely insensitive to basal conditions, according to satellite-derived ice-flow observations.

Prescribed burning has far less impacts on peat growth and carbon sequestration than previously thought, according to a long-term experiment in fire-managed peat moorlands in England. Managed burning may be a viable strategy to make peatlands more resilient to devastating wildfire.

Past and future changes in tropical cyclones and the damage they cause are fiendishly difficult to detect and project. For the Atlantic, progress is being made; other ocean basins lag behind.

Most of the net water transferred over the past 15 years from non-glaciated land to the oceans has originated from landlocked basins, according to satellite data. This source of sea-level rise is often overlooked.

Extreme temperature swings and deteriorating environments are perhaps what killed most life in the end-Permian extinction, suggest climate model simulations. Siberian Traps volcanism probably triggered the events.

Changes in calcification of marine organisms must be considered to explain the deepening of carbonate accumulation during ocean recovery from acidification events. According to a literature synthesis and modelling, dissolution of sedimentary carbonate is not sufficient to explain observations.