Geophysical Research Letters Research Articles

Thank You to Our 2023 Peer Reviewers

AbstractOn behalf of the journal, AGU, and the scientific community, the editors of Geophysical Research Letters would like to sincerely thank those who reviewed manuscripts for us in 2023. The hours reading and commenting on manuscripts not only improve the manuscripts, but also increase the scientific rigor of future research in the field. With the advent of AGU's data policy, many reviewers have also helped immensely to evaluate the accessibility and availability of data, and many have provided insightful comments that helped to improve the data presentation and quality. We greatly appreciate the assistance of the reviewers in advancing open science, which is a key objective of AGU's data policy. We particularly appreciate the timely reviews in light of the demands imposed by the rapid review process at Geophysical Research Letters. We received 4,512 submissions in 2023 and 5,112 reviewers contributed to their evaluation by providing 8,587 reviews in total. We deeply appreciate their contributions.

Challenges in Evaluating Climate Sensitivity from Climate Models

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of Geophysical Research Letters, the editors showcase an exceptional study published in the journal that investigates the climate sensitivity in CMIP6 models.

RETRACTION: Rapid Acidification of the Arctic Chukchi Sea Waters Driven by Anthropogenic Forcing and Biological Carbon Recycling

RETRACTIOND. Qi, Y. Wu, L. Chen, W.‐J. Cai, Z. Ouyang, Y. Zhang, L. G. Anderson, R. A. Feely, Y. Zhuang, H. Lin, R. Lei, H. Bi. (2022). Rapid Acidification of the Arctic Chukchi Sea Waters Driven by Anthropogenic Forcing and Biological Carbon Recycling. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2021GL097246. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL097246.The above article, published online on 21 February 2022 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor‐in‐Chief, Harihar Rajaram; American Geophysical Union; and John Wiley & Sons LLC. The retraction has been agreed as it was discovered that the 2019 pCO2 data collected on the 10th Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition and analyzed along with other data in this paper was used without proper permission. AGU Publications and Wiley evaluated all information submitted by the authors and scientific agencies and carefully considered Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines before making this decision. The authors have revised their statistical analyses by excluding the 2019 Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition data and have stated they intend to submit the revised manuscript to the journal. D. Qi acknowledges that the data ownership is disputed, and therefore accepts the retraction. L. Chen and W.‐J. Cai disagree with the retraction. Z. Ouyang, Y. Zhang, L. G. Anderson, R. A. Feely, Y. Zhuang, H. Lin, R. Lei, and H. Bi did not respond to our notice of retraction.

Revival of the Comment and Reply Sequence in Geophysical Research Letters

Revival of the Comment and Reply Sequence in <i>Geophysical Research Letters</i>

Retraction Statement: New Types of Electron Pitch Angle Distributions on Mars: Funnel and Skirt Distrbiutions

Retraction: Guo, Z. et al. (2023). New types of electron pitch angle distributions on Mars: Funnel and skirt distributions. Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2022GL101874, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101874. The above article, published online on 24 January 2023 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the authors; the journal Editor‐in‐Chief, Harihar Rajaram; American Geophysical Union; and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. The retraction has been agreed because the electron pitch angle data presented were contaminated by internally produced photoelectrons as a result of the illumination geometry of the sensor at the time of the observations. After removal of the affected angular bins by the instrument principal investigator, the published conclusions were found to be invalid. Therefore, the paper was retracted at the request of the authors.

Thank You to Our 2022 Peer Reviewers

AbstractOn behalf of the journal, AGU, and the scientific community, the editors of Geophysical Research Letters would like to sincerely thank those who reviewed manuscripts for us in 2022. The hours reading and commenting on manuscripts not only improve the manuscripts, but also increase the scientific rigor of future research in the field. With the advent of AGU's data policy, many reviewers have also helped immensely to evaluate the accessibility and availability of data, and many have provided insightful comments that helped to improve the data presentation and quality. We greatly appreciate the assistance of the reviewers in advancing open science, which is a key objective of AGU's data policy. We particularly appreciate the timely reviews in light of the demands imposed by the rapid review process at Geophysical Research Letters. We received 6,687 submissions in 2022 and 5,247 reviewers contributed to their evaluation by providing 8,720 reviews in total. We deeply appreciate their contributions in these challenging times.

Bulk modulus of CaO under high pressure up to 65 GPa

In the present study we used some equilibrium experimental data reported by Mammon et al. (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 140-142) to investigate the effect of high pressure up to 65 GPa on the bulk modulus of calcium oxide (CaO) material. We used the Vinet’s equation of state (EOS) model. The fit of the bulk modulus as a function of pressure p obeys the 2nd order polynomial expression: B = 115.37 + 3.84 p - 7.25 x 10-3 p2 (where both B and p are expressed in GPa). Our results are analyzed and compared with other theoretical data of the literature. Similar behavior for the bulk modulus versus pressure was observed for some other materials with different crystallographic structures from the literature, which commonly increases with increasing pressure. We estimate also the Debye temperature θD of our material of interest using the experiential lattice parameter and elastic constants measured at normal conditions by Speziale et al. (Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 111, (2006), pp. B02203 (12 pages)). Our obtained value (670.1 K) is in good agreement with other data of the literature.

Introduction to Special Collection “The Exceptional Arctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex in 2019/2020: Causes and Consequences”

AbstractThis paper introduces the special collection in Geophysical Research Letters and Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres on the exceptional stratospheric polar vortex in 2019/2020. Papers in this collection show that the 2019/2020 stratospheric polar vortex was the strongest, most persistent, and coldest on record in the Arctic. The unprecedented Arctic chemical processing and ozone loss in spring 2020 have been studied using numerous satellite and ground‐based data sets and chemistry‐transport models. Quantitative estimates of chemical loss are broadly consistent among the studies and show profile loss of about the same magnitude as in the Arctic in 2011, but with most loss at lower altitudes; column loss was comparable to or larger than that in 2011. Several papers show evidence of dynamical coupling from the mesosphere down to the surface. Studies of tropospheric influence and impacts link the exceptionally strong vortex to reflection of upward propagating waves and show coupling to tropospheric anomalies, including extreme heat, precipitation, windstorms, and marine cold air outbreaks. Predictability of the exceptional stratospheric polar vortex in 2019/2020 and related predictability of surface conditions are explored. The exceptionally strong stratospheric polar vortex in 2019/2020 highlights the extreme interannual variability in the Arctic winter/spring stratosphere and the far‐reaching consequences of such extremes.

Data in Park et al., 2022, submitted to Geophysical Research Letters

Data in Park et al., 2022, submitted to Geophysical Research Letters

Withdrawn: Similar Isotopic Biases of Plant Stem Bulk Water From Different Water Sources by Cryogenic Vacuum Distillation Demonstrated Through Rehydration Experiments

AbstractZhao, P., Sprenger, M., Barzegar, R., Tang, X., &amp; Adamowski, J. (2022). Similar isotopic biases of plant stem bulk water from different water sources by cryogenic vacuum distillation demonstrated through rehydration experiments. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2021GL096474. The above article from Geophysical Research Letters, published online on 30 March 2022 in Wiley Online Library (http://wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been withdrawn by agreement among the authors, the Editor‐in‐Chief Harihar Rajaram, the American Geophysical Union, and Wiley Periodicals, LLC. The withdrawal has been agreed because the authors discovered, after acceptance of the article but before final publication, some accidental transcription/typo errors in the data (for some δ2H and δ18O values) which would affect some of the results and cannot be sufficiently corrected to the authors' satisfaction.

Data for "The role of cloud in the transportation of dust into basin area: a case study in Sichuan Basin, southwesten China" submitted to Geophysical Research Letters

Data for "The role of cloud in the transportation of dust into basin area: a case study in Sichuan Basin, southwesten China" submitted to Geophysical Research Letters

Data for "The role of cloud in the transportation of dust into basin area: a case study in Sichuan Basin, southwesten China" submitted to Geophysical Research Letters

Data for "The role of cloud in the transportation of dust into basin area: a case study in Sichuan Basin, southwesten China" submitted to Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters Supporting Information for"Tropical plant species living under P limitation show signs of greater resistance to drought"

Geophysical Research Letters Supporting Information for"Tropical plant species living under P limitation show signs of greater resistance to drought"

When we could be diving for pearls

My December 2021 editorial elicited an unusually high number of emails sent directly to me: three. The first to arrive came from Samantha Holland, who is the audio–video archivist at the American Institute of Physics’s Niels Bohr Library and Archives. (AIP publishes Physics Today.) Holland asked me if the editorial’s title, “It’s all too much,” was an allusion to the Beatles’ song of the same name. Yes, I confirmed.The editorial was inspired by a paper by Johan Chu of Northwestern University and James Evans of the University of Chicago.11. ​J. S. G. Chu, J. A. Evans, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2021636118 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021636118 Having analyzed 1.8 billion citations of 90 million papers in 10 scientific fields, the pair concluded that as the number of papers in a field increases, researchers find it harder to recognize innovative work and scientific progress slows.My second email correspondent, retired particle physicist Dick Land, told me about a past instance of innovative work that failed to achieve recognition: John James Waterston’s 1845 paper “On the physics of media that are composed of free and perfectly elastic molecules in a state of motion.” Rejected by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the paper languished in the society’s archives until Lord Rayleigh, having encountered a reference to it, retrieved it. He grasped its significance. In his view, the failure to publish it promptly retarded the development of the kinetic theory of gases by 10–15 years. An engaging account of the rediscovery of Waterston’s paper appeared in John Howard’s From the Editor column in the May 1969 issue of Applied Optics.Judy Lamana’s email to me acknowledged that Chu and Evans’s predictions “seem inevitable.” Nevertheless, she went on to propose a way to forestall them: Each paper should come with a concise table that identifies whether the paper describes a method, furthers existing ideas, or intends to be disruptive. She would also like papers to include a declaration about how they were reviewed. For example, “blind as to an author’s gender, and affiliations,” as she put it.I like Lamana’s idea of an at-a-glance way to evaluate a paper’s novelty. Some journals already offer something somewhat similar. Papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences include a distinctive blue box on the first page that outlines a paper’s significance in more or less plain English. Papers in Geophysical Research Letters include not just a lay-language summary but also a bulleted list of key points.But such an approach, however helpful, has two drawbacks. First, the summary and key points are generated by authors and are therefore not impartial. Second, although they make it easier to decide whether to read the whole paper, you still have to read each summary. An ideal system for identifying innovative research would be unbiased and automatic. Is such a system possible?A portent of a truly automatic method came my way recently in the form of a paper by Brian Thomas and others.22. ​B. Thomas et al., Res. Notes AAS 6, 11 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/ac4990 They evaluated the feasibility of using machine learning to identify research priorities in astronomy. Specifically, they applied natural language processing to evaluate the prevalence of topics in two sets of bibliographic data: the abstracts of papers published in 1998–2010 in 10 top astronomy journals and the chapters of the 2010 decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics that were devoted to the frontiers of astronomical science.Thomas and company found a significant but modest correlation. Evidently, the priorities identified by the survey for the upcoming decade reflected the topics that astronomers most actively published on in the previous decade.But are those topics of lasting impact or are they merely fashionable? For each paper in their data set, Thomas and company estimated its mean lifetime citation rate. The rate was modestly correlated with the prevalence of topics, as you might expect. But it did not correlate with topics in the decadal survey, from which Thomas and company conclude: “This result suggests that the Decadal Survey places significant emphasis on established research and may under-emphasize new, growing research topic areas.”Because machine learning works on existing data, the approach could indeed struggle to identify truly revolutionary science. But what if that’s a feature, not a bug? Maybe the value of algorithms like Thomas and company’s lies in identifying research that, as Lamana put it, furthers existing ideas. What’s left could be the game-changing new work.ReferencesSection:ChooseTop of pageReferences <<1. ​J. S. G. Chu, J. A. Evans, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2021636118 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021636118, Google ScholarCrossref2. ​B. Thomas et al., Res. Notes AAS 6, 11 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/ac4990, Google ScholarCrossref© 2022 American Institute of Physics.

Assessment of radiological hazards in cooking liquid oil, used in Kurdistan region-Iraq

In this study, the cooking liquid oil as a principal foodstuff element in meals of Kurdistan region population has been examined for radioactivity assessment. The activity concentration of natural and artificial radionuclides in twenty one oil types available in Kurdistan region markets were calculated using NaI(Tl) gamma-ray spectrometer. The results indicates that the activity concentration of 238U, 232Th and 40K radionuclides were ranged in Bq/L from 0.167- 0.207, 0.148-0.613 and 0.184-12.018, respectively. For 137Cs artificial radionuclide, the activity concentration was below the detection limit. The radiological parameters derived from the primordial radionuclides of radium equivalent Raeq, , Indoor Absorbed Gamma Dose Rate (Din), Indoor Annual Effective Dose Rate (Ein), Annual Committed Effective Dose, Representative Level Index (RLI) and Excess Life Time Cancer Risk were calculated to be well below the recommendation values suggested by UNSCEAR 200. Thus, it’s concluded that the usage of the 21 studied oil samples do not create any radiological risks and safe for consumptions. References Adedokun, M.B., Aweda, M.A., Maleka, P.P., Obed, R.I., Ogungbemi, K.I. and Ibitoye, Z.A., 2019. Natural radioactivity contents in commonly consumed leafy vegetables cultivated through surface water irrigation in Lagos state, Nigeria. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences, 12(1), pp.147-156. Al-Ghamdi, A. and Alzahrani, J., 2017. Studies of 226Ra, 28Th and 40K Concentrations in Cooking Oil and Estimation the Radiological Hazards to Human Health. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS), 31(1), pp.78-84. Al-Hamidawi, A.A., Al-Gazaly, H.H. and Al-Alasadi, L.A., 2013. Determination of natural radiation contamination for some types of legumes available in the Iraqi markets. Pelagia Research Library, 4(5), pp.245-250. Awudu, A., Faanu, A., Darko, E., Emi-Reynolds, G., Adukpo, O., Kpeglo, D., Otoo, F., Lawluvi, H., Kpodzro, R., Ali, I. and Obeng, M., 2011. Preliminary studies on 226Ra, 228Ra, 228Th and 40K concentrations in foodstuffs consumed by inhabitants of Accra metropolitan area, Ghana. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 291(3), pp.635-641). Cherry, S.R., Sorenson, J.A. and Phelps, M.E., 2012. Physics in nuclear medicine e-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. Hammood, H.A., and Al-Khalifa, I.J.M., 2011. Radon concentration measurement in water of Dhi-Qar governorate in Iraq using emanometer. Journal of Basrah Researches (Sciences), 37(5), pp.22-29.) Mamont-Ciesla, K.,Gwiazdowski,B.,Biernacka,M.,Zak,A.,1982. Radioactivity of Building materials in Poland. In:Vohra,G.,Pillai,K.C.,Sadavisan,S.(Eds.), Natural Radiation Environment .Halsted Press, NewYork, p.551. Misdaq, M.A. and Touti, R., 2012. Annual committed effective dose from olive oil (due to 238U, 232Th, and 222Rn) estimated for members of the Moroccan public from ingestion and skin application. Health physics, 102(3), pp.335-345. Morino, Y., Ohara, T. and Nishizawa, M., 2011. Atmospheric behavior, deposition, and budget of radioactive materials from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011. Geophysical research letters, 38(7). Ononugbo, C.P., Avwiri, G.O. and Ikhuiwu, S.O., 2017. Estimation of natural radioactivity levels in some food spices commonly used in Nigeria and its radiological risks. Journal of Scientific Research and Reports, 16(3), pp.1-9. Podgorsak, E.B., 2003. Review of radiation oncology physics: a handbook for teachers and students. Vienna, Austria: IAE Agency. Podgoršak, E.B., 2006. Radiation physics for medical physicists (Vol. 1). Berlin: Springer. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, 2000. Sources and effects of ionizing radiation, ANNEX B, Exposures from natural radiation sources. UNSCEAR 2000 REPORT, New York, 1, pp.97-99. WHO (2008) Guidelines for drinking- water quality, third edition, vol1 Geneva. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. (1993). UNSCEAR 1993. Sources and effects of ionizing radiation, UNSCEAR report to the general assembly with scientific annexes, United Nations, New York.‏

Underwater Sound Levels in the Arctic: Filling Knowledge Gaps

AbstractClimate change is projected to cause the Arctic soundscape to become noisier due to sea ice loss and increased anthropogenic activity. Many studies on underwater sound levels have been conducted in the western North American Arctic and Fram Strait, but the rest of the Arctic is full of geographic gaps. Han et al. (2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl093097) published a study in Geophysical Research Letters on underwater sound levels in the East Siberian Sea, providing the first estimates of seasonal trends and the natural and anthropogenic drivers of underwater sound levels in this region. This is an excellent first step in filling geographic gaps in the Russian Arctic, and I call on other researchers to continue to fill these geographic gaps throughout the Arctic so that we can set a baseline and study changes to underwater sound levels being caused directly and indirectly by climate change.

Thank You to Our 2019 Peer Reviewers

On behalf of the journal, AGU, and the scientific community, the editors would like to sincerely thank those who reviewed the manuscripts for Geophysical Research Letters in 2019. The hours reading and commenting on manuscripts not only improve the manuscripts but also increase the scientific rigor of future research in the field. We particularly appreciate the timely reviews in light of the demands imposed by the rapid review process at Geophysical Research Letters. With the revival of the “major revisions” decisions, we appreciate the reviewers' efforts on multiple versions of some manuscripts. With the advent of AGU's data policy, many reviewers have helped immensely to evaluate the accessibility and availability of data associated with the papers they have reviewed, and many have provided insightful comments that helped to improve the data presentation and quality. We greatly appreciate the assistance of the reviewers in advancing open science, which is a key objective of AGU's data policy. Many of those listed below went beyond and reviewed three or more manuscripts for our journal, and those are indicated in italics.

Retraction: Organic Pools in the Subsea Permafrost Domain Since the Last Glacial Maximum

Geophysical Research LettersVolume 47, Issue 14 e2019GL083049 RetractionFree Access Retraction: Organic Pools in the Subsea Permafrost Domain Since the Last Glacial Maximum This article retracts the following: Retracted: Organic Carbon Pools in the Subsea Permafrost Domain Since the Last Glacial Maximum Cuicui Mu, Tingjun Zhang, Benjamin W. Abbott, Kang Wang, Shemin Ge, Sayedeh Sara Sayedi, Chengyan Fan, Xiaoqing Peng, Volume 46Issue 14Geophysical Research Letters pages: 8166-8173 First Published online: July 18, 2019 First published: 16 July 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.60628 Correspondence to: C. Mu and T. Zhang, mucc@lzu.edu.cn; tjzhang@lzu.edu.cn AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat This article retracts the following: Mu et al. (2019). Organic pools in the subsea permafrost domain since the Last Glacial Maximum. Vol. 46, Issue 14, pages 8166–8173. First published: 3 JUL 2019. The above article, published online on 3 July 2019 in Wiley Online Library (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor in Chief, Harihar Rajaram, and John Wiley & Sons LLC. The retraction has been agreed due to an incorrect interpretation of the data used in the original analysis, which are surface sediment data and cannot be used to estimate the organic carbon stock in subsea permafrost. Reference Mu, C., Zhang, T., Abbott, B. W., Wang, K., Ge, S., Sayedi, S. S., Fan, C., & Peng, X. (2019). Organic pools in the subsea permafrost domain since the Last Glacial Maximum. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 8166– 8173. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083049 Volume47, Issue1428 July 2020e2019GL083049 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Special Issue No. – 10, June, 2020 Journal &gt; Special Issue &gt; Special Issue No. – 10, June, 2020 &gt; Page 5 “Quantative Methods in Modern Science” organized by Academic Paper Ltd, Russia MORPHOLOGICAL AND ANATOMICAL FEATURES OF THE GENUS GAGEA SALISB., GROWING IN THE EAST KAZAKHSTAN REGION Authors: Zhamal T. Igissinova,Almash A. Kitapbayeva,Anargul S. Sharipkhanova,Alexander L. Vorobyev,Svetlana F. Kolosova,Zhanat

Special Issue No. – 10, June, 2020 Journal &gt; Special Issue &gt; Special Issue No. – 10, June, 2020 &gt; Page 5 “Quantative Methods in Modern Science” organized by Academic Paper Ltd, Russia MORPHOLOGICAL AND ANATOMICAL FEATURES OF THE GENUS GAGEA SALISB., GROWING IN THE EAST KAZAKHSTAN REGION Authors: Zhamal T. Igissinova,Almash A. Kitapbayeva,Anargul S. Sharipkhanova,Alexander L. Vorobyev,Svetlana F. Kolosova,Zhanat

Critical speeding up as an early warning signal of stochastic regime shifts

The use of critical slowing down as an early warning indicator for regime switching in observations from noisy dynamical systems and models has been widely studied and implemented in recent years. Some systems, however, have been shown to avoid critical slowing down prior to a transition between equilibria (Ditlevsen and Johnsen, Geophysical Research Letters, 37(19), 2010; Hastings and Wysham, Ecol Lett 13(4):464–472, 2010). Possible explanations include a non-smooth potential driving the dynamic (Hastings and Wysham, Ecol Lett 13(4):464–472, 2010) or large perturbations driving the system out of the initial basin of attraction (Boettiger and Batt 2020). In this paper, we discuss a phenomenon analogous to critical slowing down, where a slow parameter change leads to a high likelihood of a regime shift and creates signature warning signs in the statistics of the process’s sample paths. This effect, which we dub “critical speeding up,” is demonstrated using a simple population model exhibiting an Allee effect. In short, if a basin of attraction is compressed under a parameter change then the potential well steepens, leading to a drop in the time series’ variance and autocorrelation; precisely the opposite warning signs exhibited by critical slowing down. The fact that either falling or rising variance / autocorrelation can indicate imminent state change should underline the need for reliable modeling of any empirical system where one desires to forecast regime change.