Reviews & Analysis

Strong anisotropy within the source region of deep earthquakes explains their apparent non-pure shear faulting mechanism.

Rainfall interception by vegetation is an underappreciated part of the terrestrial hydrological cycle. Numerical modelling shows that non-vascular plants, such as lichens, substantially increase the interception capacity of the land surface.

Plants influence geomorphology. Research on salt marshes suggests that feedbacks between geomorphic processes and life-history traits of plants produce species-specific signatures in the organization of biogeomorphic landscapes.

There was minimal cooling in the North Atlantic Ocean during the Oligocene inception of the Antarctic ice sheet, according to a sediment record. This finding suggests asynchronous climate changes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Much of the carbon in rivers originates from wildfires and is ultimately buried in the oceanic carbon sink, suggest measurements from 18 rivers globally. Rivers transport almost a gigaton of carbon to the oceans every year.

A review of Earth system changes associated with past warmer climates provides constraints on the environmental changes that could occur under warming of 2 °C or more over pre-industrial temperatures.

If emissions continue at the present-day rate, about 22 years are left until global mean warming reaches the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement target, suggests a new metric based on the observed level and rate of anthropogenic warming.

Accounting for the oceanic transport of carbon suggests that existing estimates of the location and magnitude of the land carbon sinks need to be revised.

Ocean oxygen loss in a warming world is strongly affected by biogeochemical processes that are not fully accounted for in ocean models, suggests a literature synthesis.

Detailed analyses of the source characteristics of two earthquake sequences lead to seemingly contradictory interpretations: one study concludes that each earthquake triggers subsequent ones, while the other favours a slow-slip trigger.

The creation of an energetic framework for monsoon systems is needed to fully understand past and future variations in tropical rainfall, according to a literature review.

Tall trees are more resilient to drought than short trees, suggests a comparison of the sensitivity of photosynthesis to soil moisture in Amazon forests.

Higher stream temperatures as the climate warms could lead to lower ecosystem productivity and higher CO₂ emissions in streams. An analysis of stream ecosystems finds that such changes will be greatest in the warmest and most productive streams.

The heat driving Yellowstone’s volcanism originates from a depth of at least 700 km, according to images of the mantle created using novel seismic methods.