Paper Harvest Report

Date range: May 07, 2026

7 top-tier papers selected out of 118 total publications

Today’s Highlights

Terrestrial runoff into the Arctic Ocean creates a stark optical divide, increasing light attenuation by 35% and potentially delaying under-ice blooms — a process current Earth System Models fail to capture (GRL). In West Africa, a decades-long Sahel drought triggered a regime shift between alternative stable states of low and high runoff, driven by vegetation–surface feedbacks (Nature Communications). Climate change lowers the Amazon deforestation threshold for rainfall decline from 50% to just 10% forest loss under high-emission scenarios (GRL), and Africa’s planned 57% increase in electricity generation by 2030 brings growing hydropower-related water stress.

Today’s Highlights
Top-Tier Journal Papers
Statistics
1. Papers by journal
Filtering Criteria

Top-Tier Journal Papers

Terrestrial Runoff Divides the Central Arctic Ocean and Shapes the Biologically Relevant Marine Lightscape

Authors: Håkon Sandven, David McKee, Rafael Gonçalves‐Araujo, Rüdiger Röttgers, Anders F. Opdal et al.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters · DOI: 10.1029/2025gl121318

Matched topics: runoff, earth system model

The Arctic Ocean is undergoing drastic changes in its sea ice cover, but is also optically complex. Observations from summer 2022 across the western Eurasian Basin, show increased colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) absorption from terrestrial‐derived runoff within the Transpolar Drift (TPD) in the Amundsen Basin, extending down to a depth of 100 m. This is in stark contrast to the low‐CDOM waters of the Atlantic‐influenced Nansen Basin. The higher CDOM absorption increases the diffuse attenuation coefficient by around 35% relative to Atlantic‐influenced waters, and changes the spectral quality of light at depth. An irradiance model demonstrates that the decreased light availability can delay or inhibit under‐ice phytoplankton blooms, affect zooplankton behavior, and cause enhanced solar heating in the upper 10 m. These findings show that simplified representations of light attenuation in present Earth System Models can hinder accurate assessments of light limitations on Arctic marine ecosystems.

Climate Change Amplifies Rainfall Sensitivity to Deforestation in the Southern Amazon

Authors: Jie Zhang, Alice Catherine Hughes, Britaldo Silveira Soares‐Filho, Jose Antonio Marengo, Eduardo Eiji Maeda

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters · DOI: 10.1029/2025gl119000

Matched topics: climate change

Rainfall among the Amazon has been shown to decline sharply once forest loss exceeds a critical threshold, typically around 30%–40%. However, future interactions between climate change and deforestation on this threshold remain unclear. We model their combined effects by 2050 on rainfall and temperature. Our findings indicate that climate and land‐use change lower the deforestation threshold for rainfall decline—from 50% forest loss under land‐use change alone to 45% under SSP1‐2.6 and 10% under SSP5‐8.5 (90 × 90 km reference grids). Land‐use change alone is projected to warm the region by 0.29°C, while the combined effects under SSP5‐8.5 lead to 1.4°C warming. Annual rainfall is projected to decline by 1.7% due to land‐use change alone and up to 13.9% under SSP1‐2.6. Future climates amplify the importance of forests in maintaining moisture supply for rainfall. These findings underscore the growing vulnerability of the Southern Amazon to rainfall disruption and reduced land–atmosphere system resilience.

Using Tropical Cyclone Reconnaissance to Improve Forecasts of Post-Landfall Tropical Cyclone Hazards

Authors: Jason A. Sippel, Sarah D. Ditchek, Andrew Hazelton, Daniel Brown, Ghassan J. Alaka et al.

Journal: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · DOI: 10.1175/bams-d-25-0125.1

Matched topics: flood

This study presents a first attempt to systematically evaluate the impact of tropical cyclone (TC) reconnaissance missions on post-landfall TC forecasts, including life-threatening hazards. Reconnaissance data demonstrably improves TC forecasts, which has encouraged a significant increase in reconnaissance flights over the past decade. Despite this increase, aircraft observations are primarily used to minimize pre-landfall forecast errors, with little to no operational consideration of post-landfall forecasts. Thus, this effort represents a natural next step in optimizing the effectiveness of TC reconnaissance missions. Observing-system experiments conducted using NOAA’s Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model suggest that pre-landfall reconnaissance benefits post-landfall forecasts. In particular, dropwindsondes released from missions into landfalling TCs substantially improve track forecasts through the post-landfall period. We specifically examine Hurricanes Harvey (2017) and Florence (2018), two TCs with long post-landfall tracks that were notable for catastrophic flooding. In both, dropwindsonde sampling substantially modifies the near-storm flow, leading subsequent to forecast improvements for both track and precipitation. Precipitation forecast skill improves the most in cycles with the largest track improvements. These results suggest that reconnaissance sampling can be further optimized to more holistically improve TC-hazards forecasts, both before and after landfall. This could be accomplished by using reconnaissance to the maximum extent through landfall, especially for cases with high-impact potential. In extreme cases like Harvey and Florence, aircraft might also be used post-landfall, perhaps with additional radiosonde observations. Further, new targeting strategies could also be implemented to target post-landfall impacts.

Subsurface messenger for the annual maximum lifetime maximum intensity of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific

Authors: Xinning Ni, Yu Zhang, Wei Wang

Journal: Nature Communications · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72770-5

Matched topics: climate change, surface water

Given the large number of record-breaking tropical cyclones (TCs) in recent years, there is a pressing need to investigate how strong TCs respond to climate change. Here we find that the annual maximum lifetime maximum intensity (LMI) of TC in the western North Pacific is strongly correlated with the temperature of a subsurface water mass, exhibiting a multi-decadal V-shaped structure in the past four decades. This water mass originally forms and is subducted in the eastern North Pacific under the center of the North Pacific High (NPH). It is then transported along a subsurface path over approximately four years to the western boundary. Correspondingly, the annual maximum LMI can be predicted several years in advance based on the intensity of NPH. We propose a mechanism in which the highly variable heat content of the subsurface water mass modulates the under-storm sea surface temperature through TC-induced mixing and upwelling process.

Authors: S. D. Vaca-Jiménez, P. W. Gerbens-Leenes, Bunyod Holmatov, Raphael Vanham, Davy Vanham

Journal: Nature Communications · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72692-2

Matched topics: hydropower

Africa needs to increase electricity production to improve electricity access. For informed decision making, there is a need for reliable, findable, high-quality, open access and spatially distributed power plant data with associated water use and CO2 emissions amounts. Here we present a detailed spatial inventory of operational, under construction and planned African power plants from 2020 until 2030, covering 3,139 individual plants, the result of an intensive data mining effort. This inventory forecasts a 57% increase to 1,787,858 Gigawatthours in electricity production from 2023 to 2030. Related water use and CO2 emissions increase substantially, showing trade-offs in water and carbon intensity of different fuel types. Africa is stepping up in planning and constructing additional power plants, with renewables’ share growing from 19% to 34%. However, the increase in hydropower puts additional pressure on available water resources. Current power plant construction falls slightly short on commitments in the nationally determined contributions.

Evidence of hydrological regime shifts associated with a major decades-long drought in West Africa

Authors: Christophe Peugeot, Valentin Wendling, Erwan Le Roux, Gérémy Panthou, Basile Hector et al.

Journal: Nature Communications · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72648-6

Matched topics: drought

Using ground-based meteorological, hydrological and land cover datasets from 1950 to 2015, we provide evidence that the increase in runoff observed in the semi-arid central Sahel (West Africa) since the 1970-1995 drought is a shift between alternative stable states of low and high runoff. We propose a conceptual model, governed by feedback loops between vegetation and surface runoff, which describes the stabilising mechanisms of each state and the basin-scale impact of local shifts. While the drought was likely the trigger for the shift, land clearing and rainfall intensification may have reinforced it. Due to wetter conditions and greater resilience, other basins further south did not shift. Our study suggests that the shift towards higher runoff is due to surface processes playing a dominant role in this region, with minimal contribution from subsurface processes. This regime shift framework offers a promising perspective on understanding long-term hydrological changes.

Channelized topography amplifies melt-sensitivity of cold Antarctic ice shelves

Authors: Qin Zhou, Tore Hattermann, Chen Zhao, Rupert Gladstone, Julius Lauber et al.

Journal: Nature Communications · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-71828-8

Matched topics: river

The stability of Antarctic ice shelves, which regulate the flow of grounded ice into the ocean, depends critically on ocean-driven basal melting. Basal channels, widespread features beneath many ice shelves, modulate ice-shelf basal melt rates and influence ice-shelf stability, yet their oceanic drivers remain poorly understood. Using high-resolution simulations of a cold-water ice shelf cavity, we show that interactions between circulation and channelized topography generate localized overturning that traps intruding warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) beneath the ice, amplifying melt rates by an order of magnitude within channels. This ocean-driven process significantly enhances the sensitivity of the ice shelf basal mass loss to ocean warming, and the resulting differential melting promotes channel growth, with the potential to undermine the structural stability of the deeper part of the ice shelf. Our results reveal a key mechanism for basal channel evolution and indicate that even modest CDW intrusions could have important implications for the stability of cold Antarctic ice shelves.

Statistics

Metric	Count
Journals searched	11
Total papers fetched	118
Passed deterministic filter	7
After LLM relevance filtering	7
Rejected (not relevant)	0

Papers by journal

Journal	Papers
Geophysical Research Letters	2
Nature Communications	4
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society	1

Filtering Criteria

Topics: hydrology, hydrologic model, river, runoff, streamflow, reservoir, water management, flood, drought, seasonal, land surface model, climate change, hydropower, surface water, irrigation, earth system model, estuary, coastal, freshwater discharge, river plume, ocean biogeochemistry, marine heatwave, paleohydrology, paleoclimate, Quaternary, Holocene, Pleistocene, fluvial geomorphology, river terrace, loess, drainage network, river capture, landscape evolution, luminescence dating

Fields: engineering, environmental science, computer science, geology, geography