Reviews & Analysis

Balancing soil health and food production is a struggle for agriculture. The practice of burying crop residues in subsoil offers a dual win: richer carbon storage and higher yields.

A new study tracks sea ice, ocean swell and ice shelf conditions over multiple years in the lead-ups to large-scale Antarctic ice shelf calving events. We quantified the strengths and durations of increased ice shelf flexure that preconditioned and subsequently triggered the calving events.

With solar projects worldwide expected to expand rapidly, understanding the ecosystem impacts is vital. Recent work highlights that optimizing land use strategies can significantly enhance carbon sequestration in the hosting ecosystem, making them a more effective tool in combating climate change.

Earth has been degassing volatiles since its accretion. Insights from the noble gases helium and argon in groundwater suggest an underappreciated role for degassing from the subcontinental mantle lithosphere below the continental roots.

New experiments shed light on the complex interplay between rock deformation and metamorphism. Slab stagnation in Earth’s mantle transition zone may be explained by transient weakening during the olivine–spinel phase transition.

Calculation of the sulfur and water budgets released from magma during the 2022 eruption of Hunga volcano — the largest submarine eruption recorded — shows that of 18.8 Tg of sulfur dioxide released, <7% entered the atmosphere. The remaining sulfur dioxide dissolved in the ocean during explosive magma fragmentation at 400–1,000 m below sea level.

The Indian summer monsoon plays a key part in influencing marine life in the Bay of Bengal. Palaeoceanographic records reveal that both extremely weak and strong monsoon phases led to declines in marine productivity. Future monsoon shifts pose a disruptive threat to the stability of regional ecosystems and fisheries.

Atmospheric oxygen, supplied from the oceans, dramatically rose during the Great Oxidation Event. Our examination of the preceding evolution of seawater oxygenation revealed that the redox state in seawater oscillated between oxic and anoxic conditions before oceanic oxygenation again increased towards the dawn of the Great Oxidation Event.

Ancient metamorphosed basalts show a sulfur isotopic fingerprint of surface sediment, suggesting volatile cycling by a subduction-like process was occurring more than 3.8 billion years ago.

The rise of oxygen in the early Earth’s atmosphere remains enigmatic in its timing and extent. Insights from thallium isotopes in Archean shales suggest that it may have experienced flips in oxygenation on a global scale prior to 2.5 billion years ago.

Measurements from a robotic underwater vehicle reveal the impacts of meltwater from the giant iceberg A-68A on the properties of the surrounding Southern Ocean. In addition to increasing surface stratification and mid-depth vertical mixing, the meltwater impacts primary productivity, with direct and indirect effects on ecosystems and carbon cycling.

Continued ground uplift long after the drying out of the Aral Sea demonstrates that human activity can provoke a response deep inside our planet, in this case by causing rock in Earth’s mantle to flow.

Aquatic vegetation has an important role in lake methane emissions. Between 1984 and 2021 the maximum area of aquatic vegetation in northern lakes (>40° N) expanded by 2.3 × 10⁴ km². This expansion could substantially increase long-term total methane emissions from lakes.

Analysis of global datasets indicates that dry to wet transitions in soil wetness over regions spanning around 500 km can increase the size and rainfall intensity of organized thunderstorms around the world. Therefore, observations of soil moisture could improve storm forecasts and support adaptation to changing hazards under climate change.

High-pressure experiments reveal that calcium solubility in bridgmanite is insufficient to fully remove davemaoite from the Earth’s lower mantle. We propose that davemaoite-enriched domains form at the core–mantle boundary, serving as reservoirs for incompatible elements and offering a potential explanation for large low shear-wave velocity provinces.

Ongoing climate change might alter the Atlantic–European jet and affect hydroclimate extremes. Reconstructions of jet metrics for 1421–2023 show that summer drought in Central Europe coincided with a poleward shift and flood episodes coincided with an equatorward shift. Recent changes (past 30 years) are still within the boundaries of past variability.

Natural gradients across surface ocean regions show that changes in carbonate chemistry projected for ocean alkalinity enhancement could promote the proliferation of calcifying phytoplankton. This shift would increase an alkalinity sink, thus reducing the efficiency of ocean alkalinity enhancement as a CO₂ removal method.

The rigid-body motion of Earth’s wandering inner core has now been reliably tracked over the past 20 years. With this knowledge, we can compare seismic recordings obtained when the inner core returns to the same position after moving for several years. More is changing than just the inner core position; the soft outermost inner core probably deforms.

The cause of episodes of unrest at caldera volcanoes is often unclear. Analysis of the sulfur composition of gas emissions at Campi Flegrei in Italy suggests a magmatic origin of the recent unrest at this hazardous caldera.