New Papers (AGU, etc.) 2025/11/17~2025/11/23

  

[Geophysical Research Letters]

1. Midlatitude Atmosphere–Ocean Interaction Reinforces the East Asian Winter Monsoon

Reina Sakamoto, Yuhei Takaya, Shoji Hirahara, Hiroaki Naoe, Satoru Okajima, Hiroaki Ueda

[Journal of Geophysical Research C. Oceans]

2. Enhanced Ocean Heat Uptake by Mesoscale Eddies in a Community Earth System Model

Man Yuan, Zhao Jing, Hong Wang, Shengpeng Wang, Lixin Wu

 

[Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology]

3. Improving Paleosol-Based Atmospheric CO2 Reconstruction via Joint Proxy Inversion

Jiawei Da, Gabriel J. Bowen, Dustin T. Harper, Katharine Huntington

4. Slope Water Intrusions Onto Canadian Atlantic Continental Shelf During the Past 1800 Years

D. Keigwin, B. Petrie, E. A. Boyle

 

[Climate of the Past]

4. Ocean control on sea ice in the Nordic Seas

Wanyee Wong, Bjørg Risebrobakken, Malin Ödalen, Amandine Aline Tisserand, Kirsten Fahl, Ruediger Stein, and Eystein Jansen

5. South Atlantic lipid biomarkers support synchronous Plio-Pleistocene global cooling: Revising the ODP Site 1090 sea surface temperature record

 Brianna Hoegler, Timothy Herbert, and Jamie Pahigian

6. East Greenland Ice Sheet retreat history from Scoresby Sund and Storstrømmen Glacier during the last deglaciation

Jacob T. H. Anderson, Nicolás E. Young, Allie Balter-Kennedy, Karlee K. Prince, Caleb K. Walcott-George, Brandon L. Graham, Joanna

7. Holocene climate dynamics in the central Mediterranean inferred from pollen data

Léa d'Oliveira, Sébastien Joannin, Guillemette Ménot, Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout, Lucas Dugerdil, Marion Blache, Mary Robles, Assunta Florenzano, Alessia Masi, Anna Maria Mercuri, Laura Sadori, Marie Balasse, and Odile Peyron

8. Ice core site considerations from modeling CO2 and O2 ∕ N2 ratio diffusion in interior East Antarctica

Marc J. Sailer, Tyler J. Fudge, John D. Patterson, Shuai Yan, Duncan A. Young, Shivangini Singh, Don Blankenship, and Megan Kerr

Field Trip To the Amami Mangroves (9-11 Nov)

From November 9th to 11th, out ‘Dream Team’: Wataru, Masumi, Miya, and me headed to Amami Island for a short but unforgettable sampling trip in the mangroves. This wasn’t my first time visiting mangroves, but it was definitely the most adventurous one. 

A Mangrove World Surrounded by Water

The mangroves in Amami are very different from the ones I visited at Orpheus Island, the Great Barrier Reef. In Amami, the system is connected to both freshwater from nearby lakes and seawater from the ocean. During high tide, everything is covered by water. But even during low tide, although the soil underneath the trees becomes exposed and you can see mangroves standing fully on their muddy ground, everything away from the land is still underwater. 

A narrow mangrove channel with branches arching overhead, we had to bend, weave, and jungle our way through this passage.

So to reach most of the sampling sites, we still had to walk through water or travel by canoe. This was my first time paddling a canoe, and honestly, it was so much fun. On Day 1, we zigzagged all over the place and crashed into nearly every possible direction. On Day 2, I finally got the hang of steering, and it felt incredibly peaceful paddling between the green walls of mangrove trees. 

Canoeing across the calm mangrove waters with stunning Amami mountains in the background.

Walking through Mangroves 

The mangrove part was always the hardest. Walking in the water meant dealing with mud so soft that your feet sink down with every step. At some spots, the mud was dark and smelled strongly of sulfur, classic signs of an anoxic organic-rich environment where sulfate reduction is happening. The soil is so active and full of decomposition that oxygen disappears quickly.

Walking through the mangroves with Wataru, watching dark pore water swirl up from the mud beneath our feet. 

Walking on the mangrove soil itself was another challenge. It felt like walking on a giant wet sponge, squishy, bouncy, and completely unpredictable. On top of that, mangrove branches weave together in all directions, most of them not very tall, so we were constantly stooping, ducking, and twisting to move forward. 

The mangrove mud was so soft that every step left a giant footprint behind.

What We Collected 

On the first day, we collected river, estuary, seawater, and mangrove water samples, including samples for radiocarbon measurements. We also set up the water-level meter, while Masumi measured salinity and temperature at each site. 

Fieldwork teamwork: Wataru sampling water and Masumi recording the chemical properties right beside him.

One surprising thing is how old the carbon around mangroves can be, much older than carbon in seawater. It seems that bacteria in the soil are constantly recycling carbon, allowing it to stay in the system for a very long time. On the second day, we continued seawater sampling, and this time Wataru told me something exciting: the pore-water radiocarbon samples we collected may become the first mangrove pore-water radiocarbon measurements in the world. How cool is that? 

Wataru collecting pore water using special samplers, drawing water from different soil layers into vacuum flasks.

Masumi also collected soil samples to examine the bacterial communities, which will hopefully give us new insights into how carbon is processed in these environments. 

Masumi measuring the height of the soil core for bacterial analysis, while Miya taking the photo.

Reflections 

Fieldwork in Amami was muddy, tiring, and sometimes very wet, but also incredibly fun and rewarding. Canoeing through the mangrove channels, working together as a team, and collecting samples that could contribute to brand-new scientific knowledge made the whole trip special. These mangroves are beautiful, messy, complicated systems, and I left Amami feeling grateful to experience them up close. I can’t wait to see what the radiocarbon and microbial results will show.

A stunning view from the canoe: calm water, lush mangroves, and mountains rising quietly in the background.

New Paper Introduction (Nature): 11/12 - 17/11

 Nature

1. Mortality Impacts of rainfall and sea-level rise in a developing megacity – Tom Bearpark, Ashwin Rode and Archana Patankar https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09730-4

2. Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget - Pierre Friedlingstein, Corinne Le Quéré, Michael O’Sullivan, Judith Hauck, Peter Landschützer, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Hongmei Li, Auke van der Woude, Clemens Schwingshackl, Julia Pongratz, Pierre Regnier, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Thomas Gasser, Matthew W. Jones, Xin Lan, Eric Morgan, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Stephen Sitch & Hanqin Tian https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09802-5

Nature Geoscience 

3. Seismic gap breached by the 2025 Mw7.7 Mandalay (Myanmar) earthquake – Bo Li, Sigurjon, Cahli Suhendi, Jihong Liu, Duo Li, Arther Delorme, Yann Klinger and Paul Martin Mai https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01861-7

4. Mangrove sediment carbon burial offset by methane emissions from mangrove tree stems – Guoming Qin, Zhe Lu, Christian Sanders, Jingfan Zhang, Shuchai Gan, Jinge Zhou, Xingyun Huang, Hua He, Mengxiao Yu, Hui Li, Peter I. Macreadie and Faming Wang https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01848-4

Nature Communications

5. Land use-induced soil carbon loss in the dry tropics nearly offsets gains in northern lands - Huan Wang, Philippe Ciais, Hui Yang, Pete Smith, Giacomo Grassi, Clemens Schwingshackl, Panos Panagos, Yinon Bar-On, Stephen Sitch, Frédéric Chevallier, Paul I. Palmer, Xiaojun Li, Songbai Hong, Jinfeng Chang, Clément Albergel, Lei Fan, Kai Wang, Laibao Liu, Frédéric Frappart & Jean-Pierre Wigneron https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64929-3

6. Controls on the southwest USA hydroclimate over the last six glacial-interglacial cycles - Kathleen A. Wendt, Stacy Carolin, Christo Buizert, Simon D. Steidle, R. Lawrence Edwards, Gina E. Moseley, Yuri Dublyansky, Hai Cheng, Chengfei He, Mellissa S. C. Warner & Christoph Spötl https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64963-1

Nature Climate Change

7. Anthropogenic enhancement of subsurface soil moisture droughts - Yansong Guan, Xihui Gu, Aiguo Dai, Tianjun Zhou, Xing Yuan, Ashok K. Mishra, Jakob Zscheischler, Yadu Pokhrel, Lunche Wang, Jianfeng Li, Shengzhi Huang, Sijia Luo, Liangwei Li, Dongdong Kong & Xiang Zhang https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02458-z

Nature Scientific reports

8. Nitrogen uptake and water consumption for achieving height yield of winter wheat upon nitrogen addition at different doses – Bo Qu, Hafeez Noor, Yujie Feng, Jun Di, Majed Alotaibi and Fida Noor https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-24530-6

Science Advances

9. Meltwater from West Antarctic ice sheet tipping affects AMOC resilience – Sacha Sinet, Anna S. Von Der Heydt and Henk A. Dijkstra https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw3852

10. Suppression of marine heatwave activity by tropical cyclone – induced upper ocean cooling – Iam-fei Pun, I-I Lin, and Chun-Chieh Wu https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw8070

 

 

New Papers (Nature, Science, etc) 2025/11/4-2025/11/11

Nature

1. Ocean warming threatens the viability of 60% of Antarctic ice shelves | Nature

Nature Communications

2. East Siberian ice wedges recording dust transport variability during the Late Pleistocene | Nature Communications

3. Volcanic eruptions disrupt ENSO teleconnections with land summer temperature | Nature Communications

4. Turbulent isopycnal mixing dominates thermohaline transformations of intermediate ocean waters | Nature Communications

5. Climate change impacts on ocean light in Arctic ecosystems | Nature Communications

Nature Geoscience 

6. Record grounded glacier retreat caused by an ice plain calving process | Nature Geoscience

Nature Climate Change

7. Southern Ocean freshening stalls deep ocean CO2 release in a changing climate | Nature Climate Change

Science

8. Synchronization of global peak river discharge since the 1980s | Science

9. Cosmic dust reveals dynamic shifts in central Arctic sea-ice coverage over the past 30,000 years | Science

UH-AORI Symposium

Some members of Yokoyama lab participated in the Hawaii–AORI Symposium held from October 7 to 10.

Yusuke and Shoko gave oral presentations, while Bethany, Miya, and Shunsuke presented posters.

At the icebreaker dinner on the 7th, we had lively conversations with many professors and students over delicious Italian food and wine. Miya even found a new collaborator interested in analyzing the intestines of her abalone shells.

🍕めっちゃうまい！

On the 8th and 9th, a series of oral and poster sessions took place at AORI. The topics were diverse and covered various aspects of marine science, though less focused on geology this time.

During the banquet on the 8th, we enjoyed an excellent buffet. It was a great chance to reconnect with familiar faces (for the professors), make new friends, and chat about science, hobbies, and sports.

The final day was left open for lab visits and informal seminars. Our lab was delighted to host Steven, Sara, and Samuel, who shared their research with us. We also presented our own work and had engaging discussions afterward. Later, Steven expressed interest in visiting the community garden Miya has been working on, so she brought him, Sara, Samuel, and Yahagi-sensei to see her “secret garden.”

Overall, it was a fun and fruitful week full of scientific exchange, casual conversations, delicious food, and both old and new friendships.