ALBERT

Description: The development of algorithms for remote sensing of water quality (RSWQ) requires a large amount of in situ data to account for the bio-geo-optical diversity of inland and coastal waters. The GLObal Reflectance community dataset for Imaging and optical sensing of Aquatic environments (GLORIA) includes 7,572 curated hyperspectral remote sensing reflectance measurements at 1 nm intervals within the 350 to 900 nm wavelength range. In addition, at least one co-located water quality measurement of chlorophyll a, total suspended solids, absorption by dissolved substances, and Secchi depth, is provided. The data were contributed by researchers affiliated with 59 institutions worldwide and come from 450 different water bodies, making GLORIA the de-facto state of knowledge of in situ coastal and inland aquatic optical diversity. Each measurement is documented with comprehensive methodological details, allowing users to evaluate fitness-for-purpose, and providing a reference for practitioners planning similar measurements. We provide open and free access to this dataset with the goal of enabling scientific and technological advancement towards operational regional and global RSWQ monitoring.

Description: An author of the paper was omitted in the original version (Ted Conroy, University of Waikato, New Zealand). This has been corrected in the pdf and HTML versions of the paper, and the associated metadata.

Description: In contrast to the well-recognized permafrost carbon (C) feedback to climate change, the fate of permafrost nitrogen (N) after thaw is poorly understood. According to mounting evidence, part of the N liberated from permafrost may be released to the atmosphere as the strong greenhouse gas (GHG) nitrous oxide (N2O). Here, we report post-thaw N2O release from late Pleistocene permafrost deposits called Yedoma, which store a substantial part of permafrost C and N and are highly vulnerable to thaw. While freshly thawed, unvegetated Yedoma in disturbed areas emit little N2O, emissions increase within few years after stabilization, drying and revegetation with grasses to high rates (548 (133–6286) μg N m−2 day−1; median with (range)), exceeding by 1–2 orders of magnitude the typical rates from permafrost-affected soils. Using targeted metagenomics of key N cycling genes, we link the increase in in situ N2O emissions with structural changes of the microbial community responsible for N cycling. Our results highlight the importance of extra N availability from thawing Yedoma permafrost, causing a positive climate feedback from the Arctic in the form of N2O emissions.

Description: The discrepancy between global loss and local constant species richness has led to debates over data quality, systematic biases in monitoring programmes and the adequacy of species richness to capture changes in biodiversity. We show that, more fundamentally, null expectations of stable richness can be wrong, despite independent yet equal colonization and extinction. We analysed fish and bird time series and found an overall richness increase. This increase reflects a systematic bias towards an earlier detection of colonizations than extinctions. To understand how much this bias influences richness trends, we simulated time series using a neutral model controlling for equilibrium richness and temporal autocorrelation (that is, no trend expected). These simulated time series showed significant changes in richness, highlighting the effect of temporal autocorrelation on the expected baseline for species richness changes. The finite nature of time series, the long persistence of declining populations and the potential strong dispersal limitation probably lead to richness changes when changing conditions promote compositional turnover. Temporal analyses of richness should incorporate this bias by considering appropriate neutral baselines for richness changes. Absence of richness trends over time, as previously reported, can actually reflect a negative deviation from the positive biodiversity trend expected by default.

Description: The original version of the Description of Additional Supplementary Files associated with this Article contained errors in the legends of Supplementary Data 5–8 and omitted legends for the Source Data. The HTML has been updated to include a corrected version of the Description of Additional Supplementary Files; the original incorrect version of this file can be found as Supplementary Information associated with this Correction.

Description: The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) was a yearlong expedition supported by the icebreaker R/V Polarstern, following the Transpolar Drift from October 2019 to October 2020. The campaign documented an annual cycle of physical, biological, and chemical processes impacting the atmosphere-ice-ocean system. Of central importance were measurements of the thermodynamic and dynamic evolution of the sea ice. A multi-agency international team led by the University of Colorado/CIRES and NOAA-PSL observed meteorology and surface-atmosphere energy exchanges, including radiation; turbulent momentum flux; turbulent latent and sensible heat flux; and snow conductive flux. There were four stations on the ice, a 10 m micrometeorological tower paired with a 23/30 m mast and radiation station and three autonomous Atmospheric Surface Flux Stations. Collectively, the four stations acquired ~928 days of data. This manuscript documents the acquisition and post-processing of those measurements and provides a guide for researchers to access and use the data products.

Description: Host–microbe interactions have been linked to health and disease states through the use of microbial taxonomic profiling, mostly via 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. However, many mechanistic insights remain elusive, in part because studying the genomes of microbes associated with mammalian tissue is difficult due to the high ratio of host to microbial DNA in such samples. Here we describe a microbial-enrichment method (MEM), which we demonstrate on a wide range of sample types, including saliva, stool, intestinal scrapings, and intestinal mucosal biopsies. MEM enabled high-throughput characterization of microbial metagenomes from human intestinal biopsies by reducing host DNA more than 1,000-fold with minimal microbial community changes (roughly 90% of taxa had no significant differences between MEM-treated and untreated control groups). Shotgun sequencing of MEM-treated human intestinal biopsies enabled characterization of both high- and low-abundance microbial taxa, pathways and genes longitudinally along the gastrointestinal tract. We report the construction of metagenome-assembled genomes directly from human intestinal biopsies for bacteria and archaea at relative abundances as low as 1%. Analysis of metagenome-assembled genomes reveals distinct subpopulation structures between the small and large intestine for some taxa. MEM opens a path for the microbiome field to acquire deeper insights into host–microbe interactions by enabling in-depth characterization of host-tissue-associated microbial communities.

Description: The extreme 2018 and 2022 droughts pose as recent examples of a series of drought events that have hit Europe over the last decades with wide ranging social, environmental and economic impacts. Although the link between atmospheric circulation and meteorological drought is clear and often highlighted during major drought events, there is a lack of in-depth studies linking historical changes in meteorological drought indices and prevailing large-scale atmospheric patterns in Europe. To meet this shortfall, we investigated the relation between changes in large-scale atmospheric patterns and meteorological drought, as indicated by the geopotential height at 500mb (Z500) and the Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), respectively. Calculations were done separately for four climate regions (North, West, Central-East and Mediterranean) over the growing season (March–September). Coherent patterns of significant changes towards higher pressure (increasing Z500) and drier conditions (decreasing SPEI) over 1979–2021 are found over West in spring and Central-East in summer. Z500 and SPEI are strongly linked, reflected by both significant (1979–2021) correlations and high co-occurrences (69-96%) between meteorological drought and high-pressure anomaly occurrences since 1900. North shows the most heterogeneous trend patterns and weakest links, but constitutes a hotspot of significantly increasing Z500 in September. Finally, we performed an ensemble-based, European wide analysis of future Z500, based on CMIP6 low-end (SSP126) and high-end (SSP585) 21st century emission scenarios. According to the projected changes, anomalously high-pressure systems will be the new normal regardless of scenario, and well exceeding the 2018 and 2022 levels in the case of the high-end emission scenario. However, due to the limitations of the model ensemble to represent the spatial heterogeneity in historical Z500 variability and trends (1979–2014), projected changes in large-scale circulation, and associated meteorological droughts, are highly uncertain. This paper provides new insight into significant trends in atmospheric circulation over Europe, their strong links to the observed drying trends, and the inability of a CMIP6 ensemble to reproduce the spatial heterogeneity of the circulation changes.

Description: Exceptional drought events, known as megadroughts, have occurred on every continent outside Antarctica over the past ~2,000 years, causing major ecological and societal disturbances. In this Review, we discuss shared causes and features of Common Era (Year 1–present) and future megadroughts. Decadal variations in sea surface temperatures are the primary driver of megadroughts, with secondary contributions from radiative forcing and land–atmosphere interactions. Anthropogenic climate change has intensified ongoing megadroughts in south-western North America and across Chile and Argentina. Future megadroughts will be substantially warmer than past events, with this warming driving projected increases in megadrought risk and severity across many regions, including western North America, Central America, Europe and the Mediterranean, extratropical South America, and Australia. However, several knowledge gaps currently undermine confidence in understanding past and future megadroughts. These gaps include a paucity of high-resolution palaeoclimate information over Africa, tropical South America and other regions; incomplete representations of internal variability and land surface processes in climate models; and the undetermined capacity of water-resource management systems to mitigate megadrought impacts. Addressing these deficiencies will be crucial for increasing confidence in projections of future megadrought risk and for resiliency planning.