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Tropical forests and savannah are more resilient to climate disturbances when they have been exposed to higher rainfall variability in the long-term past, finds an analysis of Brazilian rainfall and tree-cover observations.
Before the Great Oxidation Event there was regional-scale, full water-column oxygenation above the continental shelf, according to molybdenum and thallium isotope records that indicate massive manganese oxide burial.
Stratocumulus cloud decks—which cool the Earth’s surface by shading it from sunlight, and are prevalent in the subtropics—break up into scattered clouds when CO2 levels rise above 1,200 ppm in large-eddy simulations that explicitly resolve cloud dynamics.
The shape and internal structure of bilobate comet 67P is controlled by shear deformation inducing mechanically driven erosion along shear fracture networks, according to a 3D analysis of images from the Rosetta mission.
The ice volume of glaciers outside the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets totals about 158,000 km3, with about 27% less ice in High Mountain Asia than thought, according to multiple models that estimate ice thickness from surface characteristics.
Many lakes in arid, organic-poor permafrost landscapes have a negligible role in mineralizing terrestrial carbon, according to metabolic analyses of lakes in the arid Yukon Flats Basin.
Melting of sedimentary rocks in the continental back-arc is cyclical with peaks of magmatism every 10 to 15 million years, according to zircon ages from Paleozoic western Gondwana margin samples.
A late onset of inner-core growth is inferred from ultra-low palaeomagnetic field strengths about 565 million years ago, as measured in magnetic inclusions in Ediacaran crystals.
A separate mantle domain, distinct from both the Pacific and Indian domains, exists beneath the Southern Ocean, according to isotope compositions of samples from the Australian–Antarctic ridge.
Explosive volcanic eruptions in the extratropics have cooled the climate in their hemisphere more than tropical eruptions, suggests an analysis of reconstructions since ad 750 and simulations with an atmosphere–aerosol model.
Earthquakes in the crust and mantle at transform faults are distinct yet coupled, with seismic swarms in the mantle apparently preceding large earthquakes, according to ocean-bottom seismic monitoring of the Blanco Transform Fault.
A large reservoir of organic carbon persists in oxic pelagic sediments for millions of years as demonstrated by samples from the North Atlantic and South Pacific. This predominantly proteinaceous carbon persists due to physical protection and adsorption to mineral surfaces.
Fires and logging alter soil composition and result in a significant reduction of soil nutrients that lasts for decades after the disturbance, suggests an analysis of soil samples across a multi-century sequence in mountain ash forests.
Any influence of the 11-year solar cycle on the North Atlantic Oscillation is insignificant, and could have been a chance occurrence, suggest analyses of the instrumental record and of chemistry–climate model simulations.
Microbial degradation is a key process for removing aromatic hydrocarbons from the oceans, according to measurements in plankton and seawater with 64 types of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their microbial degradation genes in four ocean basins.
The sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheet to obliquity increases when ice-sheet margins are exposed to the ocean, suggests an analysis of sediment core oxygen isotope records.