Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using machine learning algorithms, this study estimates sea level rise and high tide flooding thresholds every 10 km along the United States’ coasts, complementing conventional linear-/point-based estimates and offering insights for ungauged areas.

    • Sadaf Mahmoudi
    • , Hamed Moftakhari
    •  & Hamid Moradkhani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study reveals a widening range of projected North Atlantic climate states in the mid-twenty-first century. The distinct trajectories seen in sea surface temperatures are activated by global warming and may enable skillful long-lead decadal predictions.

    • Qinxue Gu
    • , Melissa Gervais
    •  & Shang-Ping Xie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atmospheric methane-oxidizing bacteria constitute the sole biological sink for atmospheric methane. Here, Schmider et al. assess the ability and strategies of seven methanotrophic species to grow with air as sole energy, carbon, and nitrogen source, showing that these bacteria can grow on the trace concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen present in air.

    • Tilman Schmider
    • , Anne Grethe Hestnes
    •  & Alexander T. Tveit

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Meaningful public engagement is key to sustainable governance of carbon removal and solar radiation modification. A study across 22 countries emphasizes tailored approaches sensitive to local contexts, technological nuances, power dynamics and trust.

    • Livia Fritz
    • , Chad M. Baum
    •  & Benjamin K. Sovacool

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbial reduction of nitrous oxide to dinitrogen is considered negligible under acidic conditions. However, Guang He et al. show that a co-culture of two bacterial species derived from acidic tropical forest soil can reduce nitrous oxide at pH 4.5.

    • Guang He
    • , Gao Chen
    •  & Frank E. Löffler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Traders of financial options bet that firms’ stock prices will be affected by forecasts of seasonal climate produced by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Firms are exposed throughout the economy, and traders spend more to hedge the news from more skillful forecasts

    • Derek Lemoine
    •  & Sarah Kapnick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors analyze the frequency, duration and intensity of stratospheric intrusions to the surface in China over 2015-2022 and find that such intrusions enhance surface ozone pollution, especially in spring and autumn, followed by summer.

    • Zhixiong Chen
    • , Jane Liu
    •  & Zhou Zang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By 2050 > 23% of the global population aged 69 + will live in climates with acute heat exposure– the 95th percentile of the distribution of maximum daily temperatures–greater than the critical threshold of 37.5C, compared with 14% in 2020, an increase of 177–246 million older adults exposed to dangerous acute heat.

    • Giacomo Falchetta
    • , Enrica De Cian
    •  & Deborah Carr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Sargasso Sea is a natural laboratory for understanding future conditions of warmer oceans and associated nutrient limitation. Here, the authors combined short- and long-read sequencing to survey Sargasso Sea viral communities.

    • Joanna Warwick-Dugdale
    • , Funing Tian
    •  & Ben Temperton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    NH4+-derived pathways, rather than NO3--derived pathway, are the dominant hyporheic N2O sources in lower-order streams. These findings provide insights into better estimation of N2O emissions in global models of riverine ecosystems and emphasize the importance of managing ammonium.

    • Shanyun Wang
    • , Bangrui Lan
    •  & Yong-Guan Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cities that experience compact development tend to witness more extreme rainfall over downtown than their rural surroundings, while the anomalies in extreme rainfall frequency diminish for cities with dispersed development patterns.

    • Long Yang
    • , Yixin Yang
    •  & Dev Niyogi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors reveal a 3.9% intensification in the sea surface temperature seasonal cycle over the past four decades, with hotspot regions experiencing intensification of up to 10%. This intensification extends throughout the mixed layer, amplifying the seasonal cycle of upper-ocean oxygenation.

    • Fukai Liu
    • , Fengfei Song
    •  & Yiyong Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using prey size measurements from ten Southern Ocean lanternfish species sampled across >10° of latitude, this study shows that higher temperatures were associated with smaller fish and an overall decrease in the size of fish relative to their prey. Ocean warming may therefore alter the diversity and size structuring of trophic interactions, reducing the stability of marine ecosystems.

    • Patrick Eskuche-Keith
    • , Simeon L. Hill
    •  & Eoin J. O’Gorman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Since the Jurassic, East European basins have likely been situated over a weakening mantle upwelling, which heated the basins and created suitable conditions for hydrocarbon maturation, according to geodata combined with modelling.

    • Alik Ismail-Zadeh
    • , Anne Davaille
    •  & Yuri Volozh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When a solid object is placed in a supersaturated environment, it can exhibit interesting dynamics. Spagnolie et al. conducted an experiment using raisins and 3D-printed bodies in carbonated water and found that the motion of the solid object is influenced by the accumulation and release of bubbles as they reach the surface.

    • Saverio E. Spagnolie
    • , Samuel Christianson
    •  & Carsen Grote

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study presents an unprecedented analysis of agricultural land multi-degradation in 40 European countries, using twelve dataset-based processes that were modelled as land degradation convergence and combination pathways across the continent.

    • Remus Prăvălie
    • , Pasquale Borrelli
    •  & Marius-Victor Birsan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the use of amine-functionalized polymers as metal adsorbents, they are generally ineffective at recovering precious metals. Here the authors prepare a star-shaped, hydrazide-functionalized polymer as a recoverable standalone adsorbent with high precious metal adsorption capability/selectivity and practical feasibility.

    • Seung Su Shin
    • , Youngkyun Jung
    •  & Jung-Hyun Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plastics, chemical production, and fertilizers commonly rely on fossil fuels. Here the authors examine these uses in China and find that in 2017, 5%, 15%, and 7% of China’s total coal, crude oil, and natural gas were used as feedstocks in the chemical industry.

    • Meng Jiang
    • , Yuheng Cao
    •  & Bing Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The end of the green Sahara in the mid-Holocene was gradual, but punctuated by rapidly changing episodes of extreme drought and wetness, to which human societies were exposed and had to adapt to, as a lake record from southern Ethiopia suggests.

    • Martin H. Trauth
    • , Asfawossen Asrat
    •  & Paul J. Valdes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors describe an early synziphosurine from the Lower Ordovician Fezouata Shale of Morocco, which exhibits traits that elucidate the long-contentious relationships between crown euchelicerates and their sister taxa, and also clarifies euchelicerate body plan evolution.

    • Lorenzo Lustri
    • , Pierre Gueriau
    •  & Allison C. Daley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sperm whales use sequences of clicks to communicate. Here, the authors show that these vocalizations are significantly more complex than previously believed-the “sperm whale phonetic alphabet" has both combinatorial structure and call modulation dependent on the conversational context.

    • Pratyusha Sharma
    • , Shane Gero
    •  & Jacob Andreas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fast-spinning primary of the Didymos near-earth asteroid binary system was found to have a degraded top shape by the DART (NASA) mission. Here, authors find that these surface features observed in the asteroid are more likely to have been caused by collisional effects than by the YORP effect.

    • Adriano Campo Bagatin
    • , Aldo Dell’Oro
    •  & Jean-Baptiste Vincent

  • Article
    | Open Access

    SAR11 bacteria and their phages are abundant in the oceans. Here the authors quantify the number of phage-infected SAR11 cells using microscopy techniques and discover phage-infected cells without any detectable ribosomes. They hypothesize that ribosomal RNA may be used for the synthesis of phage genomes.

    • Jan D. Brüwer
    • , Chandni Sidhu
    •  & Bernhard M. Fuchs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The average Internet user spends over 40% of their waking hours online, yet the environmental footprint remains poorly understood. This study suggests that digital content consumption could exacerbate the pressure on the finite Earth’s carrying capacity.

    • Robert Istrate
    • , Victor Tulus
    •  & Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A hindcast experiment of the 2021 summer flood in West Germany unveils a 17-hour lead time for preparedness and advisable action, holding promise for impact-based forecasting of inundated roads, railways and building footprint in real-time.

    • Husain Najafi
    • , Pallav Kumar Shrestha
    •  & Luis Samaniego

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phosphorus is an essential nutrient which may have influenced Earth’s early biosphere. This study interrogates genomic records, finding potentially phosphate depleted conditions toward the end of the Archean when enzymes for scavenging reduced phosphorus compounds spread throughout the tree of life.

    • Joanne S. Boden
    • , Juntao Zhong
    •  & Eva E. Stüeken

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