| 1. |
- Alcolombri, Uria, et al.
(författare)
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Sinking enhances the degradation of organic particles by marine bacteria
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Nature. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 14:10, s. 775-780
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The sinking of organic particles in the ocean and their degradation by marine microorganisms is one of the main drivers of the biological pump. Yet, the mechanisms determining the magnitude of the pump remain poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict this carbon flux in future ocean scenarios. Current ocean models assume that the biological pump is governed by the competition between sinking speed and degradation rate, with the two processes independent from one another. Contrary to this paradigm, we show that sinking itself is a primary determinant of the rate at which bacteria degrade particles. Heterotrophic bacterial degradation rates were obtained from a laboratory study on model surface-colonized particles at atmospheric pressure under a range of flow speeds to mimic different sinking velocities. We find that even modest sinking speeds of 8 m day−1 enhance degradation rates more than 10-fold compared with degradation rates of non-sinking particles. We discovered that the molecular mechanism underlying this sinking-enhanced degradation is the flow-induced removal from the particles of the oligomeric breakdown products, which otherwise compete for enzymatic activity. This mechanism applies across several substrates and bacterial strains, suggesting its potentially broad occurrence under natural marine conditions. Integrating our findings into a mathematical model of particulate carbon flux, we propose that the coupling of sinking and degradation may contribute, in conjunction with other processes, to determining the magnitude of the vertical carbon flux in the ocean.
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| 2. |
- Basu, Nandita B., et al.
(författare)
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Managing nitrogen legacies to accelerate water quality improvement
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 15:2, s. 97-105
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increasing incidences of eutrophication and groundwater quality impairment from agricultural nitrogen pollution are threatening humans and ecosystem health. Minimal improvements in water quality have been achieved despite billions of dollars invested in conservation measures worldwide. Such apparent failures can be attributed in part to legacy nitrogen that has accumulated over decades of agricultural intensification and that can lead to time lags in water quality improvement. Here, we identify the key knowledge gaps related to landscape nitrogen legacies and propose approaches to manage and improve water quality, given the presence of these legacies.
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| 3. |
- Benavent, N., et al.
(författare)
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Substantial contribution of iodine to Arctic ozone destruction
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 15, s. 770-773
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Unlike bromine, the effect of iodine chemistry on the Arctic surface ozone budget is poorly constrained. We present ship-based measurements of halogen oxides in the high Arctic boundary layer from the sunlit period of March to October 2020 and show that iodine enhances springtime tropospheric ozone depletion. We find that chemical reactions between iodine and ozone are the second highest contributor to ozone loss over the study period, after ozone photolysis-initiated loss and ahead of bromine.
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| 4. |
- Bradshaw, Catherine D., et al.
(författare)
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Hydrological impact of Middle Miocene Antarctic ice-free areas coupled to deep ocean temperatures
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 14, s. 429-436
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Oxygen isotopes from ocean sediments (δ18O) used to reconstruct past continental ice volumes additionally record deep water temperatures (DWTs). Traditionally, these are assumed to be coupled (ice-volume changes cause DWT changes). However, δ18O records during peak Middle Miocene warmth (~16–15 million years ago) document large rapid fluctuations (~1–1.5‰) difficult to explain as huge Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) volume changes. Here, using climate modelling and data comparisons, we show DWTs are coupled to AIS spatial extent, not volume, because Antarctic albedo changes modify the hydrological cycle, affecting Antarctic deep water production regions. We suggest the Middle Miocene AIS had retreated substantially from previous Oligocene maxima. The residual ice sheet varied spatially more rapidly on orbital timescales than previously thought, enabling large DWT swings (up to 4 °C). When Middle Miocene warmth terminated (~13 million years ago) and a continent-scale AIS had stabilized, further ice-volume changes were predominantly in height rather than extent, with little impact on DWT. Our findings imply a shift in ocean sensitivity to ice-sheet changes occurs when AIS retreat exposes previously ice-covered land; associated feedbacks could reduce the Earth system’s ability to maintain a large AIS. This demonstrates ice-sheet changes should be characterized not only by ice volume but also by spatial extent.
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| 5. |
- Brehm, Nicolas, et al.
(författare)
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Eleven-year solar cycles over the last millennium revealed by radiocarbon in tree rings
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 14:1, s. 10-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Sun provides the principal energy input into the Earth system and solar variability represents a significant external climate forcing. Although observations of solar activity (sunspots) cover only the last about 400 years, radionuclides produced by cosmic rays and stored in tree rings or ice cores serve as proxies for solar activity extending back thousands of years. However, the presence of weather-induced noise or low temporal resolution of long, precisely dated records hampers cosmogenic nuclide-based studies of short-term solar variability such as the 11-yr Schwabe cycle. Here we present a continuous, annually resolved atmospheric 14C concentration (fractionation-corrected ratio of 14CO2 to CO2) record reconstructed from absolutely dated tree rings covering nearly all of the last millennium (ad 969–1933). The high-resolution and precision 14C record reveals the presence of the Schwabe cycle over the entire time range. The record confirms the ad 993 solar energetic particle event and reveals two new candidates (ad 1052 and ad 1279), indicating that strong solar events that might be harmful to modern electronic systems probably occur more frequently than previously thought. In addition to showing decadal-scale solar variability over the last millennium, the high-temporal-resolution record of atmospheric radiocarbon also provides a useful benchmark for making radiocarbon dating more accurate over this interval.
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| 6. |
- Brovkin, Victor, et al.
(författare)
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Past abrupt changes, tipping points and cascading impacts in the Earth system
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 14:8, s. 550-558
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- A synthesis of intervals of rapid climatic change evident in the geological record reveals some of the Earth system processes and tipping points that could lead to similar events in the future. The geological record shows that abrupt changes in the Earth system can occur on timescales short enough to challenge the capacity of human societies to adapt to environmental pressures. In many cases, abrupt changes arise from slow changes in one component of the Earth system that eventually pass a critical threshold, or tipping point, after which impacts cascade through coupled climate-ecological-social systems. The chance of detecting abrupt changes and tipping points increases with the length of observations. The geological record provides the only long-term information we have on the conditions and processes that can drive physical, ecological and social systems into new states or organizational structures that may be irreversible within human time frames. Here, we use well-documented abrupt changes of the past 30 kyr to illustrate how their impacts cascade through the Earth system. We review useful indicators of upcoming abrupt changes, or early warning signals, and provide a perspective on the contributions of palaeoclimate science to the understanding of abrupt changes in the Earth system.
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| 7. |
- Büntgen, Ulf, et al.
(författare)
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Recent European drought extremes beyond Common Era background variability
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 14:4, s. 190-196
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Europe's recent summer droughts have had devastating ecological and economic consequences, but the severity and cause of these extremes remain unclear. Here we present 27,080 annually resolved and absolutely dated measurements of tree-ring stable carbon and oxygen (delta C-13 and delta O-18) isotopes from 21 living and 126 relict oaks (Quercus spp.) used to reconstruct central European summer hydroclimate from 75 bce to 2018 ce. We find that the combined inverse delta C-13 and delta O-18 values correlate with the June-August Palmer Drought Severity Index from 1901-2018 at 0.73 (P < 0.001). Pluvials around 200, 720 and 1100 ce, and droughts around 40, 590, 950 and 1510 ce and in the twenty-first century, are superimposed on a multi-millennial drying trend. Our reconstruction demonstrates that the sequence of recent European summer droughts since 2015 ce is unprecedented in the past 2,110 years. This hydroclimatic anomaly is probably caused by anthropogenic warming and associated changes in the position of the summer jet stream. European summer droughts in recent years are anomalously severe compared with those of the previous 2,000 years, according to a synthesis of annually resolved tree-ring carbon and oxygen isotope records.
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| 8. |
- Du, Enzai, et al.
(författare)
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Global patterns of terrestrial nitrogen and phosphorus limitation
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 13:3, s. 221-226
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) limitation constrains the magnitude of terrestrial carbon uptake in response to elevated carbon dioxide and climate change. However, global maps of nutrient limitation are still lacking. Here we examined global N and P limitation using the ratio of site-averaged leaf N and P resorption efficiencies of the dominant species across 171 sites. We evaluated our predictions using a global database of N- and P-limitation experiments based on nutrient additions at 106 and 53 sites, respectively. Globally, we found a shift from relative P to N limitation for both higher latitudes and precipitation seasonality and lower mean annual temperature, temperature seasonality, mean annual precipitation and soil clay fraction. Excluding cropland, urban and glacial areas, we estimate that 18% of the natural terrestrial land area is significantly limited by N, whereas 43% is relatively P limited. The remaining 39% of the natural terrestrial land area could be co-limited by N and P or weakly limited by either nutrient alone. This work provides both a new framework for testing nutrient limitation and a benchmark of N and P limitation for models to constrain predictions of the terrestrial carbon sink.
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| 9. |
- Ellerton, Daniel T., et al.
(författare)
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Fraser Island (K'gari) and initiation of the Great Barrier Reef linked by Middle Pleistocene sea-level change
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 15:12, s. 1017-1026
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The eastern Australia coastline is characterized by impressive coastal landforms and an extensive northward-moving longshore drift system that have been influenced by a stable, long-term tectonic history over the Quaternary period. However, the timing and drivers of the formation of two conspicuous landscape features—Fraser Island (K’gari) and the Great Barrier Reef—remain poorly understood. Here we use optically stimulated luminescence and palaeomagnetic dating to constrain the formation of the extensive dunes that make up Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, and adjacent Cooloola Sand Mass in southeastern Queensland. We find that both formed between 1.2 Ma and 0.7 Ma, during a global climate reconfiguration across the Middle Pleistocene transition. They formed as a direct result of increased amplitude of sea-level fluctuations associated with increasing global ice volume that redistributed previously stored sediment across the continental shelf. The development of Fraser Island dramatically reduced sediment supply to the continental shelf north of the island. This facilitated widespread coral reef formation in the southern and central Great Barrier Reef and was a necessary precondition for its development. This major reorganization of the coastal sedimentary system is probably not unique to eastern Australia and should be investigated in other passive-margin coastlines.
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| 10. |
- Gomez-Gener, L., et al.
(författare)
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Global carbon dioxide efflux from rivers enhanced by high nocturnal emissions
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 14, s. 289-294
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the atmosphere from running waters are estimated to be four times greater than the total carbon (C) flux to the oceans. However, these fluxes remain poorly constrained because of substantial spatial and temporal variability in dissolved CO2 concentrations. Using a global compilation of high-frequency CO2 measurements, we demonstrate that nocturnal CO2 emissions are on average 27% (0.9 gC m(-2) d(-1)) greater than those estimated from diurnal concentrations alone. Constraints on light availability due to canopy shading or water colour are the principal controls on observed diel (24 hour) variation, suggesting this nocturnal increase arises from daytime fixation of CO2 by photosynthesis. Because current global estimates of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere from running waters (0.65-1.8 PgC yr(-1)) rely primarily on discrete measurements of dissolved CO2 obtained during the day, they substantially underestimate the magnitude of this flux. Accounting for night-time CO2 emissions may elevate global estimates from running waters to the atmosphere by 0.20-0.55 PgC yr(-1). Failing to account for emission differences between day and night will lead to an underestimate of global CO2 emissions from rivers by up to 0.55 PgC yr(-1), according to analyses of high-frequency CO2 measurements.
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