Paper Harvest Report

Date range: October 13, 2026

2 top-tier papers selected out of 53 total publications

Today’s Highlights

Tropical Atlantic climate modes — the Atlantic Meridional Mode and Atlantic Niño — emerge as underappreciated but comparable drivers of decadal sea level variability along the U.S. East Coast, with roughly half the remote forcing signal transmitted via westward-propagating Rossby waves, directly affecting regional flood risk assessments. Meanwhile, a field study in the Changjiang Estuary demonstrates that seawalls fundamentally restructure wetland hydrology: seawall-isolated interior wetlands shift from tidal-dominated to rainfall-dominated regimes, with cascading changes to salinity, organic carbon, and vegetation, underscoring the need to incorporate hydrological connectivity into coastal infrastructure design.

Table of Contents

  1. Today’s Highlights
  2. Top-Tier Journal Papers
    1. Decadal Sea Level Variability Along the U.S. East Coast: Roles of Extratropical Versus Tropical Climate Modes Over the North Atlantic Ocean
    2. Seawall‐Induced Isolation Alters Hydrological‐Biogeochemical Conditions in Coastal Wetlands
  3. Statistics
    1. Papers by journal
  4. Filtering Criteria

Top-Tier Journal Papers

Decadal Sea Level Variability Along the U.S. East Coast: Roles of Extratropical Versus Tropical Climate Modes Over the North Atlantic Ocean

Authors: Yingli Zhu, Weiqing Han, Jianing Wang, Jian Zheng, D. L. Suhas, Aneesh C. Subramanian et al.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters · DOI: 10.1029/2026gl125873

Matched topics: river, flood, coastal

Coastal decadal sea level anomalies (SLAs) in the U.S. east coast (USEC) play a critical role in modulating coastal flooding frequency, yet relative influences of tropical versus extratropical climate modes over the North Atlantic remain unresolved. By integrating observations, simulations from simplified dynamical models and climate models, we show that remote forcings drive the most USEC decadal SLAs since 1950, with approximately half of this signal transmitted via westward-propagating Rossby waves. Notably, the tropical climate modes, the Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM) and Atlantic Nino, exert comparable remote influences as the extratropical climate modes in the USEC. We identify a key mechanism that AMM-related wind and buoyancy forcings act constructively in the northwest Atlantic, amplifying decadal SLAs in the north USEC. Our findings reveal that tropical Atlantic variability is an important, yet previously underappreciated, driver of regional sea level, underscoring its critical role in decadal predictions and flood risk assessments.

Seawall‐Induced Isolation Alters Hydrological‐Biogeochemical Conditions in Coastal Wetlands

Authors: Bingnan Zhao, Zhijun Dai, Xixing Liang, Wensheng Zhang, Fangbing Xu, Xuefei Mei, Sergio Fagherazzi

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters · DOI: 10.1029/2026gl125301

Matched topics: estuary, coastal

Coastal wetlands are increasingly impacted by tropical cyclones and storm surges. Seawalls and levees built to reduce these hazards disconnect wetlands from adjacent uplands, yet their hydroecological effects remain poorly understood. Using continuous hydrological observations in Chongming Island, Changjiang Estuary, China, we compared seaward and landward wetlands separated by a seawall. CTD sensor data, water quality measurements, and plot surveys revealed that seawall construction weakens tidal connectivity and reduces hydrological exchange landward. Seaward wetlands exhibit tidal-dominated dynamics with higher salinity and lower chlorophyll (CHL), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total organic carbon (TOC), associated with presence of Phragmites australis. Interior wetlands show reduced salinity, higher values of CHL, COD and TOC, stronger rainfall-driven responses, and are characterized by more terrestrial vegetation species. These findings suggest that seawalls can substantially alter wetland hydrodynamics and ecosystem structure, highlighting the importance of incorporating hydrological connectivity into seawall design to sustain wetland functions.

Statistics

Metric Count
Journals searched 11
Total papers fetched 53
Passed deterministic filter 7
After LLM relevance filtering 2
Rejected (not relevant) 5
AI for Science items picked 0

Papers by journal

Journal Papers
Geophysical Research Letters 2

Filtering Criteria

Topics: flood, drought, streamflow, river, reservoir, dam, watershed, runoff, precipitation, groundwater, aquifer, irrigation, hydropower, water resources, water supply, hydrologic, hydraulic, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, snowmelt, glacier, ice sheet, sea level, storm surge, estuary, coastal, ocean, climate change, land surface, earth system model

Fields: Hydrology, Environmental Science, Geology, Oceanography, Atmospheric Science, Geography, Earth and Planetary Sciences