Articles in 2014

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.

Elevated levels of CO₂ can stimulate photosynthesis in plants and increase their uptake of atmospheric carbon. A five-year study in Minnesota grasslands shows that increased plant uptake of CO₂ is restricted by the availability of vital nutrients and water.

Temporal variations in coarse river deposits are often attributed to climate change. Cosmogenic nuclide concentrations of river cobbles suggest that climate plays a subordinate role to earthquake-induced landslides in producing coarse sediments in arid Peru.

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.

Sharing data is key for efficient scientific progress. More open code would be beneficial too.

Wealth in a country typically protects against earthquake damage. The same cannot always be said for wealth of individuals.

Journals and funders increasingly require public archiving of the data that support publications. We argue that this mandate is necessary, but not sufficient: more incentives for data sharing are needed.

Open source software is often seen as a path to reproducibility in computational science. In practice there are many obstacles, even when the code is freely available, but open source policies should at least lead to better quality code.

Some modern microorganisms derive energy from the oxidation and reduction of arsenic. The association of arsenic with organic cellular remains in 2.7-billion-year-old stromatolites hints at arsenic-based metabolisms at the dawn of life.

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.