Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The release of carbon dioxide during biological carbonate production counters carbon uptake by phytoplankton. The carbon chemistry of sinking particles in the Southern Ocean suggests that iron availability stimulates this carbonate counter pump.
The exchange of water across the Antarctic continental shelf break brings warm waters towards ice shelves and glacier grounding lines. Ocean glider observations reveal that eddy-induced transport contributes significantly to this exchange.
Landslide deposits are often interpreted as the consequence of precipitation. A millennial-scale record of landslides, inferred from river cobbles in the arid Andes, is instead consistent with earthquake triggering.
Proposed engineering projects in the Amazon Basin would disrupt sediment supplies to lowland rivers. Landsat imagery of Amazonian tributaries reveals that lower sediment loads are associated with lower meander migration and cutoff rates.
Elevated CO2 is known to fertilize plant growth, resulting in greater uptake of atmospheric CO2 by plants. However, CO2 fertilization in a perennial grassland is absent when plants are jointly limited by both water and nitrogen.
Some of the most devastating earthquakes are generated in subduction zones. Analysis of the stress state of subduction zones worldwide suggests that large earthquakes are generated more frequently where a young, buoyant plate subducts.
Today, arsenic metabolism occurs in some anoxic aquatic systems. Geochemical analyses of 2.7-billion-year-old stromatolites show evidence of microbial arsenic cycling in a saline, shallow marine system.
Severe winters have occurred frequently in mid-latitude Eurasia during the past decade. Simulations with a 100-member ensemble of an atmospheric model detect an influence of declining Arctic sea-ice cover.
The volume of the East Antarctic ice sheet is influenced by changes in the Earth’s orbit. Ice-rafted debris accumulation between 4.3 and 2.2 million years ago suggests precession affected the extent of the marine margins of the ice sheet.
Compared with the other terrestrial planets, Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen-rich. Thermodynamic calculations suggest that nitrogen is readily degassed from oxidized mantle beneath Earth's subduction zones.
Mantle convection helps create continental plateaux. Seismic imaging of the mantle beneath the Canadian Cordillera—an ancient plateau—suggests the plateau formed when upwelling mantle caused a block of lithosphere to detach.
At mid-ocean ridges, upper oceanic crust forms from a central magma reservoir, but it is unclear how the lower crust forms. Seismic data from the East Pacific Rise identify a series of smaller magma lenses that help form the lower crust.
During the last deglaciation, Northern Hemisphere ice sheets discharged ice and meltwater. Seafloor scours and numerical modelling suggest that freshwater and icebergs from the Laurentide ice sheet reached the subtropical North Atlantic.
Glaciers in the Karakoram mountains have been stable in mass, whereas in nearby regions, mass loss has prevailed. Climate model simulations reveal a unique seasonal cycle in Karakoram snowfall that contributes to this pattern.
The majority of basaltic volcanism on the Moon occurred more than 3 billion years ago. Small mounded formations on the lunar nearside may be products of basaltic eruptions less than 100 million years ago, suggesting a long decline of magmatic activity.
Solar dimming from aerosols has the potential to reduce surface evaporation. A detection analysis suggests that through this effect, river flow increased by up to 25% in the most heavily polluted regions of Europe around 1980.
Compositional variations in the mantle can generate anomalous magmatism, calling into question the need for hot, upwelling mantle plumes. Numerical simulations, however, point to a plume source for the North Atlantic large igneous province.
Salt marshes protect coastlines against waves. Wave flume experiments show that marsh vegetation causes substantial wave dissipation and prevents erosion of the underlying surface, even during extreme storm surge conditions.
Global CO2 emissions are usually assessed from uncertain bottom-up estimates. A satellite-based top-down estimate suggests that emissions of NOx in East Asia have been reduced relative to those of CO2 since 2003, probably due to cleaner technology.
The salinity of the Nordic Seas dropped between 1965 and 1990. Observations and a model hindcast suggest the source of this freshwater anomaly was water from the Atlantic inflow, instead of the relatively fresh Arctic Ocean as previously suspected.