News & Views in 2022

Venus and Earth have remarkably different surface conditions, yet the lithospheric thickness and heat flow on Venus may be Earth-like. This finding supports a tectonic regime with limited surface mobility and dominated by intrusive magmatism.

Widespread injection of deep water from the Barents Sea into the Nansen Basin makes a substantial contribution to carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean, and feeds the deep sea community.

The biological processes that control the release of carbon stored in land are dependent on water availability. A global analysis of temperature sensitivity reveals how hydrometeorological processes modulate the response of land carbon turnover to temperature.

Mediation by iron minerals in the non-biological production of nitrous and nitric oxides may have driven the nitrogen cycle in the Archean ocean. This system may also have shaped the function and composition of the early marine ecosystem.

Greening of the planet has increased global surface water availability, but vegetation changes can have diverse local and remote impacts across different regions.

In rare and sometimes highly destructive cases, faults rupture faster than the seismic waves generated can travel. A global investigation of earthquake rupture speeds reveals that these events occur much more frequently than previously thought.

Submarine gas hydrates in temperate and tropical oceans are probably not large sources of atmospheric methane emissions at present, suggests a study of methane sources along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the USA.

Enhanced formation of clay in marine sediments in the lead up to the end-Permian mass extinction likely pulled the Earth back into a hot, high-CO₂ state similar to that of the Precambrian.

Cellular modelling and geochemical analyses reveal that a dominant group of phytoplankton changed their carbonate production as atmospheric CO₂ levels declined from peak levels in the warm early Eocene, hinting at a positive feedback in the global carbon cycle.

Controversy pervaded the June 2022 UN Ocean Conference, with partisan alliances forming around burgeoning environmental and social issues. Yet, out of the talks, emerged strong aspirations across UN states and other stakeholders to restore and protect the ocean.

Bedrock composition can play a critical role in determining the structure and water demand of forests, influencing their vulnerability to drought. The properties of bedrock can help explain within-region patterns of tree mortality in the 2011–2017 California drought.

Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is losing mass and has the potential to cause substantial sea level rise. New seabed imagery indicates that the glacier previously retreated at double its current rate, implying that mass loss could accelerate in the near future.

The colonization of Earth landmasses by vascular plants around 430 million years ago substantially impacted erosion and sediment transport mechanisms. This left behind fingerprints in magmatic rocks, linking the evolution of Earth’s biosphere with its internal processes.

Modelling indicates that a return to fully normal marine conditions in the Mediterranean following the flooding that ended the Messinian Salinity Crisis was delayed by salt transfers and temporarily enhanced stratification.

Sea level rise causes barrier islands to migrate landward. Coastal evolution modelling reveals a centennial-scale lag in island response time and suggests migration rates will increase by 50% within the next century, even if sea level were to stabilize.

Analyses of the 2014 Iceland–Holuhraun volcanic eruption revealed the emitted aerosols induced a 10% increase in cloud coverage above the region, suggesting anthropogenic aerosols might strongly cool the Earth’s climate by increasing the cloud coverage.

Shrubs act as thermal bridges to conduct heat through the tundra snowpack, fostering heat loss from the ground in winter and heat gain in the spring.

For decades, ozone pollution mitigation efforts relied on two chemical regimes. A global modelling analysis has revealed a third regime involving aerosols that would help with the concurrent control of both ozone and particulate pollution.