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Pulses of Saharan dust have been entering the North Atlantic since at least 11 Ma, a result of astronomically paced cycles between arid and humid conditions in northern Africa, according to a terrigenous input record from an ocean core off west Africa.
Field surveys suggest peatlands in the central Congo Basin are globally significant carbon stocks, storing approximately 28% of the world’s tropical peat carbon.
Production and consumption of dissolved organic phosphorus in the surface ocean is controlled by the interplay between phosphate and iron stress, according to global analyses of the distribution of marine nutrients.
The mercury concentration in the Arctic Ocean is lower and less variable in winter than in summer due to seasonal loss of inorganic mercury on the shelf, according to mercury measurements along a gradient in the northern Barents Sea.
The lithology of the overriding plate plays a critical role in determining fluid transport in subduction zones, according to magnetotelluric imaging of the impact of the dry, mafic Siletzia terrane on fluids in the Cascadia subduction zone, North America.
Marine carbon isotope patterns point to substantial deep water formation in the North Pacific during the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, according to a synthesis of carbon isotope records and isotope-enabled climate modelling.
Global chemical transport simulations reveal an ozone photochemistry regime where the uptake of hydroperoxyl radicals onto aerosol particles dominates ozone production.
Constraints on the cratering history of the Moon from the modelled production and removal of crustal porosity by impacts are inconsistent with an extended period of bombardment.
Coastal evolution simulations suggest that the modern retreat of coastal barrier islands is controlled by cumulative sea-level rise over the past several centuries and will accelerate by 50% within a century, even if sea-level rise remains at present rates.
Arctic shrubs cool permafrost in winter by acting as a thermal bridge through the snowpack, according to ground temperature observations and heat transfer simulations.
Ozone depletion in the Arctic stratosphere consistently disrupts surface temperature and precipitation patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, according to atmospheric chemistry–climate modelling and observations.
The Azores High over the North Atlantic has expanded due to anthropogenic climate change, disrupting precipitation patterns in western Europe, according to climate modelling and precipitation proxy records spanning the past millennium.
Observed daily changes in CO2 emissions from across the globe reveal the sectors and countries where pandemic-related emissions declines were most pronounced in 2020.
Direct measurements of carbon fixation rates in groundwater suggest a substantial contribution of in situ primary production to subsurface ecosystem processes.
Using magma inflow rate improves eruption forecasting on timescales of weeks to months for basaltic caldera systems, compared with using surface deformation alone, according to analysis of 45 unrest case studies and viscoelastic modelling.
A change in the style of rifting in the North Atlantic led to carbon fluxes from subcrustal melting that helped trigger the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, according to geochemical analyses of volcanic sequences as well as melting and tectonic modelling.
A reduction in olivine grain size can cause weakening of mantle lithosphere, facilitating continental rifting, according to coupled grain-size-evolution thermo-mechanical modelling of a mantle dynamics.
The lower oceanic crust forms through the accretion of injected melt that cools and crystallizes in situ over hundreds of thousands of years, according to seismic data from the slow-spreading equatorial Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Seismicity close to the rupture surface can shut down for centuries following a megathrust earthquake, while a much larger area surrounding it is activated for decades, according to numerical modelling of the 2011 Tohoku and other megathrust earthquakes.
The Pine Island Glacier, a locus of ice loss from the modern West Antarctic Ice Sheet, had previously been stable since at least the mid-Holocene, according to records tracking ice extent based on radiocarbon and cosmogenic exposure dating.