Scientists Investigate How Heat Rises Through Europa’s Ocean

A new study examines how heat may be transferred from the mantle, through the ocean, and into the icy crust of one of Jupiter’s moons—perhaps among the most promising places in our solar system to search for life. Lemasquerier, Bierson & Soderlund
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Compound Extreme Events Threaten Marine Ecosystems

Short-term extreme marine heat wave events superimposed on stressors from longer-term climate change produce compound extreme events that impact the Gulf of Alaska ecosystem. Hauri et al.

Grow-Fast-Die-Young Strategy Increases Swiss Forest Biomass

Climate change and CO₂ fertilization can increase both growth and mortality of trees. The net effect on forest biomass depends on that trade-off, which long-term studies in Switzerland reveal. Marqués et al.; Viewpoint by McMahon

Using Machine Learning to Reconstruct Cloud-Obscured Dust Plumes

Satellite-observed dust plumes from North Africa are frequently obscured by clouds, but a new study uses machine learning to reconstruct dust patterns, demonstrating a new way to validate dust forecasts. Kanngießer & Fiedler

Balancing Non-CO₂ GHG Emissions and Soil Carbon Change in U.S. Rice Paddies

With a comprehensive model and meta-analysis, U.S. rice paddies are shown to be a rapidly growing net GHG emission source. This underscores the importance of net CO₂ GHG mitigation in them for achieving net zero-emission and climate-friendly rice production. Zhang et al.

Comparing Carbon-Trapping Capacities of Anoxic Basins

Low-oxygen regions in the ocean could be prime spots for sequestering biomass—a potential strategy for fighting climate change. But each site has its pros and cons. Raven et al.

Climate Models Often Miss How Plants Respond to Drought

New research suggests that Earth system models are underestimating the effect of low moisture levels on plants’ abilities to exchange carbon, water, and energy with the atmosphere. Green et al.

Speed of Ice Shelf Rifting Controlled by Ocean-Ice Interactions

Scientists report the fastest rate of rift extension yet observed for an Antarctic floating ice shelf and explain why it is far slower than rates expected for brittle ice deformation. Olinger et al.; Viewpoint by Hudson

Scientists Model What’s Moving Beneath Earth’s Surface

A 3D printed model of a fault served as the setting for a hydrofracturing experiment exploring the mechanisms behind slow earthquakes. Yuan et al.

Eroding Landscapes

How good a recycler is the Himalaya? Mandal et al. [2023] use sediment recycling to their advantage to answer this and calculate how fast the hills at the front of the Himalaya are eroding based on the concentration of rare elements in river sands. —Mikaël Attal, JGR: Earth Surface

Tropical Glaciation

Ancient rooted plants can reveal the history of Earth’s largest tropical ice cap. Lamantia et al. [2023] collected some of these specimens buried by advancing outlet glaciers to illustrate rapid changes in the extent of Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru during the Holocene. —Ann Rowan, JGR: Earth Surface

Ice Melt Emulation

Deep learning can tackle deep uncertainty: The amount that Antarctic ice shelves melt now and in the future is considered to be a source of the latter, but Burgard et al. [2023] describe a method based on artificial intelligence that could help accelerate projections of polar ice melt and future sea level rise. —Nicholas Golledge, JAMES

Sediment Movement

Imagining going through a rough patch, Cho & Nelson [2024a, 2024b] model sediment moving in rivers. They find that irregularities of the rocky surface due to bumps and sediment patches are key to capturing the movement of grains in rivers. —Enrica Viparelli and Mikaël Attal, JGR: Earth Surface

Nutrient Flow

What happens to nutrients after they leave agricultural fields? To better quantify the their fate after they are released from agricultural fields, Yu et al. [2024] examine storage and nitrate export regimes in agricultural hydrology systems. —Alberto Bellin, Water Resources Research

Observing CO2 from space: A Decade of progress from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatories (OCO-2 and OCO-3)

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is the result of a complex interplay between anthropogenic emissions and the natural carbon sinks over land and ocean. As pathfinder missions, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 and its sister mission OCO-3 have remarkably expanded global CO2 observation coverage for over nine years, along with solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) data, an indicator of photosynthetic activity, at an unprecedented spatial resolution. These observations have played a pivotal role in improving quantification of natural CO2 sources and sinks, anthropogenic emissions, and our understanding of carbon-climate interactions. In celebration of the impending 10-year milestone of OCO-2 and the 5-year anniversary of OCO-3 in 2024, we extend an invitation to scholars across these communities to submit articles linked to OCO-2/3.

To submit your manuscript, use the standard submission portal of AGU Advances, Earth's Future, Earth and Space Science, Geophysical Research Letters, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, JAMES, JGR: Atmospheres, JGR: Biogeosciences, JGR: Oceans, or Reviews of Geophysics, and select the collection’s title from the drop-down menu in the Special Collection field of the submission form.

Credit: NASA (Rendition of what OCO-2 would look like over Los Angeles, with real data from the region overlaid.)