Superplumes have been put forward as a driving mechanism for a variety of global phenomena, ranging from geomagnetic reversal anomalies to global climate warming via massive additions of volcanic CO2. Here I propose that rates of uplift caused by modern superplumes would result in the liberation of hundreds of Gt of carbon from methane clathrates on a timescale from tens to hundreds of millions...

The rare biosphere, the low abundant microbial populations, is suggested to be a conserved way of microbial life. Here we conducted a molecular survey of rare methanogenic archaea in the environment targeting the mcrA gene in order to test if general concepts associated with the structure of the rare bacterial biosphere also apply to single functional groups. Similar to what is known about rare...

Irradiated ice-covered ocean worlds with rocky mafic mantles may provide the conditions needed to drive the emergence and maintenance of life. Alkaline hydrothermal springs-relieving the geophysical, thermal, and chemical disequilibria between oceans and tidally stressed crusts-could generate inorganic barriers to the otherwise uncontrolled and kinetically disfavored oxidation of hydrothermal h...

The human species has evolved to dominate the biosphere: global anthropomass is now an order of magnitude greater than the mass of all wild terrestrial mammals. As a result, our dependence on harvesting the products of photosynthesis for food, animal feed, raw materials, and energy has grown to make substantial global impacts. During the past two millennia these harvests, and changes of land us...

The terrestrial biosphere is subjected to a wide range of natural climatic oscillations. Best known is the El Niño-southern oscillation (ENSO) that exerts globally extensive impacts on crops and natural vegetation. A 50-year time series of ENSO events has been analysed to determine those geographical areas that are reliably impacted by ENSO events. Most areas are impacted by changes in precipit...

Noise annoyance has caused significant adverse impacts on human beings and numerous efforts have been spent on mitigating annoyance problems. Natural greenery has been shown to be able to moderate annoyance problems at home but this conclusion was drawn without properly controlling the potential confounding factors. Furthermore, few have explored the moderation effect of a sea view. Accordingly...

[1] Coupled atmosphere-ocean-land-sea ice climate models (AOGCMs) are often tuned using physical variables like temperature and precipitation with the goal of minimizing properties such as the root-mean-square error. As the community moves towards modeling the earth system, it is important to note that not all biases have equivalent impacts on biology. Bioclimatic classification systems provide...

Agriculture has a key role in food production worldwide and it is a major component of the gross domestic product of several countries. Livestock production is essential for the generation of high quality protein foods and the delivery of foods in regions where animal products are the main food source. Environmental impacts of livestock production have been examined for decades, but recently em...