New Papers (2013/10/15-2013/10/21)

＜Nature＞

1. Why bee colonies collapse

Nature502,274 (17 October 2013) doi:10.1038/502274a Published online 16 October 2013

Environmental stresses can cause bee colonies to fail — even if the stress levels are not high enough to kill individual insects.

2. Ozone hole fans African heat

Nature502, 275 (17 October 2013) doi:10.1038/502275c Published online 16 October 2013

Pronounced surface warming strongly correlated with shifts in the strength and position of pressure systems in the atmosphere that enhance the southward flow of warm tropical air.

3. Warnings save lives in Indian cyclone

Seven days: 11–17 October Nature 502, 16 October 2013

4. Carbon-capture fall

Seven days: 11–17 October Nature 502, 16 October 2013

Plans for large-scale projects to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions are declining, according to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Institute, a non-profit CCS-supporting company based in Melbourne, Australia. 

5. Study aims to put IPCC under a lens

Jeff Tollefson

Nature 502, 14 October 2013 

Social scientists want to examine how climate panel’s internal dynamics affect outcomes.

6. Geoengineering: One cool solution

Nicola Jones

Nature 502, 302 (17 October 2013) doi:10.1038/502302a Published online 16 October 2013

7. Biodiversity: Safeguard species in warming flatlands

Josef Settele, Ingolf Kühn & Jeremy A. Thomas

Nature 502, 303 (17 October 2013) doi:10.1038/502303c

To protect the biodiversity of flatlands against the effects of climate change, we need strategies to buy time for species to adapt to warmer environments or to move to cooler ones. 

8. Molecular understanding of sulphuric acid–amine particle nucleation in the atmosphere

João Almeida, Siegfried Schobesberger, Andreas Kürten, Ismael K. Ortega, Oona Kupiainen-Määttä et al.

Nature 502, 359–363 (17 October 2013) doi:10.1038/nature12663

Amines at typical atmospheric concentrations of a only few molecules per trillion air molecules combine with sulphuric acid to form highly stable aerosol particles at rates similar to those observed in the lower atmosphere.

＜Science＞

9. Stunning Skull Gives a Fresh Portrait of Early Humans

Ann Gibbons

Science 18 October 2013 pp. 297-298 DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6156.297

The most complete early Homo skull ever found, from Dmanisi, Georgia, gives our genus a new look.

10. Dr. Cool

Eli Kintisch

Science 18 October 2013 pp. 307-309  DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6156.307

David Keith has helped usher geoengineering into the mainstream. Actually testing a way to cool the planet is his next big challenge.

11. Hyperdominance in the Amazonian Tree Flora

Hans ter Steege, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Daniel Sabatier, Christopher Baraloto, Rafael P. Salomão, Juan Ernesto Guevara, et al.

Science 18 October 2013: Vol. 342 no. 6156 DOI: 10.1126/science.1243092

Amazonia harbors 16,000 tree species, 1.4% of which account for half of all individual trees.

12. Rapid Adaptation to Climate Facilitates Range Expansion of an Invasive Plant

Robert I. Colautti and Spencer C. H. Barrett

Science 18 October 2013 pp. 364-366 DOI: 10.1126/science.1242121

Invasive populations of purple loosestrife in eastern North America have evolved increased fitness at the invasion front.

＜PNAS＞

13. Hydrologic impacts of past shifts of Earth’s thermal equator offer insight into those to be produced by fossil fuel CO2

Wallace S. Broecker and Aaron E. Putnam

PNAS 2013 110 (42) 16710-16715; published ahead of print September 27, 2013,doi:10.1073/pnas.1301855110

They predict that a northward shift of Earth's thermal equator, initiated by an increased interhemispheric temperature contrast, may well produce hydrologic changes similar to those that occurred during past Northern Hemisphere warm periods.

14. Historical warming reduced due to enhanced land carbon uptake

Elena Shevliakova, Ronald J. Stouffer, Sergey Malyshev, John P. Krasting, George C. Hurtt, and Stephen W. Pacala

PNAS 2013 110 (42) 16730-16735; published ahead of print September 23, 2013,doi:10.1073/pnas.1314047110

Using the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory comprehensive Earth System Model ESM2G and a reconstruction of the LUC, we estimate that enhanced vegetation growth has lowered the historical atmospheric CO 2 concentration by 85 ppm, avoiding an additional 0.31 ± 0.06 °C warming.

15. Oxygen dynamics in the aftermath of the Great Oxidation of Earth’s atmosphere

Donald E. Canfield, Lauriss Ngombi-Pemba, Emma U. Hammarlund, Stefan Bengtson,Marc Chaussidon, François Gauthier-Lafaye et al.

PNAS 2013 110 (42) 16736-16741; published ahead of print September 30, 2013,doi:10.1073/pnas.1315570110

They show oxygenation of the deep oceans when oxygen levels were likely their highest. By 2.08 billion years ago, however, oxygen dropped to levels possibly as low as any time in the last 2.3 billion years. These fluctuations can be explained as a direct consequence of the initial oxygenation of the atmosphere during the Great Oxidation Event.

16. Source of the great A.D. 1257 mystery eruption unveiled, Samalas volcano, Rinjani Volcanic Complex, Indonesia

Franck Lavigne, Jean-Philippe Degeai, Jean-Christophe Komorowski, Sébastien Guillet,Vincent Robert, Pierre Lahitte et al.

PNAS 2013 110 (42) 16742-16747; published ahead of print September 30, 2013,doi:10.1073/pnas.1307520110

Drawing on a robust body of new evidence from radiocarbon dates, tephra geochemistry, stratigraphic data, a medieval chronicle, this study argues that the source of this eruption is Samalas volcano, part of the Mount Rinjani Volcanic Complex on Lombok Island, Indonesia. 

＜Nature Communications＞

17. Earthworms facilitate carbon sequestration through unequal amplification of carbon stabilization compared with mineralization

Weixin Zhang, Paul F. Hendrix, Lauren E. Dame, Roger A. Burke, Jianping Wu, Deborah A. Neher, Jianxiong Li, Yuanhu Shao, Shenglei Fu

Nature Communications 4, Article number:2576 doi:10.1038/ncomms3576
They hypothesize that neither an increase in CO 2 emission nor in stabilized carbon would entirely reflect the earthworms' contribution to net carbon sequestration.