Description: Coastal water quality in urban cities is increasingly impacted by human activities such as agricultural runoff, sewage discharges, and poor sanitation. However, environmental factors controlling bacteria abundance remain poorly understood. The study employed multiple indicators to assess ten beach water qualities in Ghana during minor wet seasons. Environmental parameters (e.g. temperature, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids) were measured in situ using the Horiba multiple parameter probe. Surface water samples were collected to measure total suspended solids, nutrients, and chlorophyll-a via standard methods and bacteria determination through membrane filtration. Environmental parameters measured showed no significant variation for the sample period. However, bacteria loads differ significantly (p = 0.024) among the beaches and influenced significantly by nitrate (55.3%, p = 0.02) and total dissolved solids (17.1%, p = 0.017). The baseline study detected an increased amount of total coliforms and faecal indicator bacteria (Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp.) in beach waters along the coast of Ghana, suggesting faecal contamination, which can pose health risks. The mean ± standard deviations of bacteria loads in beach water are total coliforms (4.06 × 103 ± 4.16 × 103 CFU/100 mL), E. coli (7.06 × 102 ± 1.72 × 103 CFU/100 mL), and Enterococcus spp. (6.15 × 102 ± 1.75 × 103 CFU/100 mL). Evidence of pollution calls for public awareness to prevent ecological and health-related risks and policy reforms to control coastal water pollution. Future research should focus on identifying the sources of contamination in the tropical Atlantic region.

Description: Present day system Earth research utilizes the tool ‘Scientific Drilling’ to access samples and to monitor deep Earth processes that cannot be tackled by other scientific means. Unlike most laboratory experiments or computer modelling, drilling projects are massive field endeavours requiring intense collaboration of researchers with engineers and service providers. In the framework of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, ICDP, more than seventy drilling projects have been conducted, from multiyear big research programs to short, smallscale deployments such as lake drilling projects. ICDP has supported these projects not only through grants covering field-related costs, but also through a variety of scientific-technical services and support, as well as active help in data management, outreach and publication. These services are described in this booklet. Due to its instructional character, we call it the ICDP Primer.

Description: This report documents the drilling operations of the Early Jurassic Earth System and Timescale scientific drilling project (JET, ICDP Project: 5065). The wells 5065_1_A, 5065_1_B, 5065_1_A were drilled in 2019-2021 with the support of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Alternatively, the site is known as Prees 2 (Holes A – C). Prees 1 was a nearby hydrocarbon exploration well drilled by Trend Petroleum in 1972–1973. The project aims to construct a fully integrated and astronomically calibrated timescale for the Early Jurassic, a time in Earth history during which important physical, chemical, and biological elements of the modern Earth system were initiated. The JET drilling campaign supplements the earlier Llanbedr (Mochras Farm) borehole (1967 – 1969) in NW Wales – usually known as Mo-chras – which recovered a 1.3 km thick succession comprising the Rhaetian (Upper Triassic), Hettangian, Sinemurian, Pliensbachian and Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) stages (Woodland, 1971; Hesselbo et al., 2013). Using the combined framework of Prees and Mochras, internal and ex-ternal forcing factors on the Earth system will be documented and quantified for major palaeo-environmental events, such as the Late Triassic mass extinction and the Early Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, and for the more stable ‘background’ state.

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: 〈jats:title〉Abstract〈/jats:title〉〈jats:p〉In spite of a proliferation of academic and policy-oriented interest in deep sea mining (DSM), this paper argues that two underlying questions remain underexplored. The first relates to 〈jats:italic〉what〈/jats:italic〉 exactly the seabed 〈jats:italic〉is〈/jats:italic〉; the second to 〈jats:italic〉who〈/jats:italic〉 the stakeholders 〈jats:italic〉are〈/jats:italic〉. It is argued that a greater interrogation of how the seabed is defined and understood, and a deeper consideration of how stakeholders are identified and the politics of their inclusion, is crucial to the enactment of policy and planning techniques. Through the analysis of current regulations to govern DSM in both national and international jurisdictions, this paper critically examines these seemingly banal but vital questions in different contexts. It is contended that most regulations are ‘fuzzy’ when it comes to addressing these questions, with the result that different understandings of the seabed and the implications of mining are ignored and that who stakeholders are and how they are defined causes many relevant voices to be unheard. It is argued, therefore, that it is imperative to address these often-overlooked questions directly in order to inform future seabed policy and governance.〈/jats:p〉

Description: One of the key components of this research has been the mapping of Antarctic bed topography and ice thickness parameters that are crucial for modelling ice flow and hence for predicting future ice loss and the ensuing sea level rise. Supported by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Bedmap3 Action Group aims not only to produce new gridded maps of ice thickness and bed topography for the international scientific community, but also to standardize and make available all the geophysical survey data points used in producing the Bedmap gridded products. Here, we document the survey data used in the latest iteration, Bedmap3, incorporating and adding to all of the datasets previously used for Bedmap1 and Bedmap2, including ice bed, surface and thickness point data from all Antarctic geophysical campaigns since the 1950s. More specifically, we describe the processes used to standardize and make these and future surveys and gridded datasets accessible under the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data principles. With the goals of making the gridding process reproducible and allowing scientists to re-use the data freely for their own analysis, we introduce the new SCAR Bedmap Data Portal (https://bedmap.scar.org, last access: 1 March 2023) created to provide unprecedented open access to these important datasets through a web-map interface. We believe that this data release will be a valuable asset to Antarctic research and will greatly extend the life cycle of the data held within it. Data are available from the UK Polar Data Centre: https://data.bas.ac.uk (last access: 5 May 2023). See the Data availability section for the complete list of datasets.

Description: Genome analyses predict that the cofactor cobalamin (vitamin B12, called B12 herein) is produced by only one-third of all prokaryotes but almost all encode at least one B12-dependent enzyme, in most cases methionine synthase. This implies that the majority of prokaryotes relies on exogenous B12 supply and interacts with producers. B12 consists of a corrin ring centred around a cobalt ion and the lower ligand 5’6-dimethylbenzimidazole (DMB). It has never been tested whether availability of this pivotal cofactor, DMB or its intermediate α-ribazole affect growth and composition of prokaryotic microbial communities. Here we show that in the subtropical, equatorial and polar frontal Pacific Ocean supply of B12 and α-ribazole enhances heterotrophic prokaryotic production and alters the composition of prokaryotic and heterotrophic protist communities. In the polar frontal Pacific, the SAR11 clade and Oceanospirillales increased their relative abundances upon B12 supply. In the subtropical Pacific, Oceanospirillales increased their relative abundance upon B12 supply as well but also downregulated the transcription of the btuB gene, encoding the outer membrane permease for B12. Surprisingly, Prochlorococcus, known to produce pseudo-B12 and not B12, exhibited significant upregulation of genes encoding key proteins of photosystem I + II, carbon fixation and nitrate reduction upon B12 supply in the subtropical Pacific. These findings show that availability of B12 and α-ribazole affect growth and composition of prokaryotic and protist communities in oceanic systems thus revealing far-reaching consequences of methionine biosynthesis and other B12-dependent enzymatic reactions on a community level.

Description: As the adverse impacts of hydrological extremes increase in many regions of the world, a better understanding of the drivers of changes in risk and impacts is essential for effective flood and drought risk management and climate adaptation. However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive, empirical data about the processes, interactions, and feedbacks in complex human-water systems leading to flood and drought impacts. Here we present a benchmark dataset containing socio-hydrological data of paired events, i.e. two floods or two droughts that occurred in the same area. The 45 paired events occurred in 42 different study areas and cover a wide range of socio-economic and hydro-climatic conditions. The dataset is unique in covering both floods and droughts, in the number of cases assessed and in the quantity of socio-hydrological data. The benchmark dataset comprises (1) detailed review-style reports about the events and key processes between the two events of a pair; (2) the key data table containing variables that assess the indicators which characterize management shortcomings, hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and impacts of all events; and (3) a table of the indicators of change that indicate the differences between the first and second event of a pair. The advantages of the dataset are that it enables comparative analyses across all the paired events based on the indicators of change and allows for detailed context- and location-specific assessments based on the extensive data and reports of the individual study areas. The dataset can be used by the scientific community for exploratory data analyses, e.g. focused on causal links between risk management; changes in hazard, exposure and vulnerability; and flood or drought impacts. The data can also be used for the development, calibration, and validation of socio-hydrological models. The dataset is available to the public through the GFZ Data Services (Kreibich et al., 2023, 10.5880/GFZ.4.4.2023.001).

Description: Interest in deep-sea mining for polymetallic nodules as an alternative source to onshore mines for various high-technology metals has risen in recent years, as demands and costs have increased. The need for studies to assess its short- and long-term consequences on polymetallic nodule ecosystems is therefore also increasingly prescient. Recent image-based expedition studies have described the temporal impacts on epi-/megafauna seafloor communities across these ecosystems at particular points in time. However, these studies have failed to capture information on large infauna within the sediments or give information on potential transient and temporally limited users of these areas, such as mobile surface deposit feeders or fauna responding to bloom events or food fall depositions. This study uses data from the Peru Basin polymetallic nodule province, where the seafloor was previously disturbed with a plough harrow in 1989 and with an epibenthic sled (EBS) in 2015, to simulate two contrasting possible impact forms of mining disturbance. To try and address the shortfall on information on transient epifauna and infauna use of these various disturbed and undisturbed areas of nodule-rich seafloor, images collected 6 months after the 2015 disturbance event were inspected and all Lebensspuren, ‘traces of life’, were characterized by type (epi- or infauna tracemakers, as well as forming fauna species where possible), along with whether they occurred on undisturbed seafloor or regions disturbed in 1989 or 2015. The results show that epi- and endobenthic Lebensspuren were at least 50% less abundant across both the ploughed and EBS disturbed seafloors. This indicates that even 26 years after disturbance, sediment use by fauna may remain depressed across these areas.

Description: The Great Lakes region of North America has warmed by 1–2 °C on average since pre-industrial times, with the most pronounced changes observable during winter and spring. Interannual variability in temperatures remains high, however, due to the influence of ocean-atmosphere circulation patterns that modulate the warming trend across years. Variations in spring temperatures determine growing season length and plant phenology, with implications for whole ecosystem function. Studying how both internal climate variability and the “secular” warming trend interact to produce trends in temperature is necessary to estimate potential ecological responses to future warming scenarios. This study examines how external anthropogenic forcing and decadal-scale variability influence spring temperatures across the western Great Lakes region and estimates the sensitivity of regional forests to temperature using long-term growth records from tree-rings and satellite data. Using a modeling approach designed to test for regime shifts in dynamic time series, this work shows that mid-continent spring climatology was strongly influenced by the 1976/1977 phase change in North Pacific atmospheric circulation, and that regional forests show a strengthening response to spring temperatures during the last half-century.