Atmospheric methane levels are rising, and isotopic ratios within the greenhouse gas suggest that the tropics may be to blame.
Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Wetter Climate Increases Methane Production in Peat
As northern Minnesota's climate got wetter, precipitation drove mobile forms of young carbon deeper into peatlands, doubling the size of methane-producing strata.
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Can We Predict the Future of Ocean Carbon Dioxide Uptake?
A new understanding of uncertainties in climate change models allows scientists to decide which source to tackle first in order to better forecast our planet's changing climate.
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A New Mechanism for Nitrogen Cycling in the Southern Ocean
A nitrite-oxidizing enzyme may work in reverse for some microbes in the Antarctic autumn.
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Can Mangroves Buffer Ocean Acidification?
New research evaluates the ability of coastal foliage to influence the ocean's pH.
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Moored Ocean Buoy Tracks Marine Carbon Cycle Variations
Years of data from a North Pacific ocean station show that the ocean's ability to pull carbon out of the atmosphere is controlled by biological and physical processes that change between seasons.
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Soil Loses Pyrogenic Carbon by an Unexpected Pathway
Fresh insight into pyrogenic carbon disappearance suggests that erosion is not responsible.
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Tracking Carbon in the Alaskan Arctic
Researchers trace carbon through Arctic soils and find an unlikely source of methane and surprisingly low methane oxidation in watersheds throughout northern Alaska.
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Past Phosphorus Runoff Causes Present Oxygen Depletion in Lakes
Sediment cores show how phosphorus pollution in the 1950s led to current, inherited hypoxia in lakes in the Alps.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Humans Greatly Increase Mercury Levels in the Ocean
A study of the natural cycle of mercury reveals that humans are to blame for a five- to sixfold increase in the oceanic concentrations of the potentially toxic element.