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Arctic observations over 2003–2024 identify three aerosol regimes with contrasting responses to warming and cloud condensation nuclei trends. Model projections suggest that the aerosol–cloud feedbacks will evolve differently across the Arctic by 2100.

Microbes store carbon in soils not only through their dead cells but also through the mucus-like substances they release while alive, a previously underappreciated pathway emerging from soil surveys across China and laboratory microcosm experiments.

Biogenic secondary organic aerosols transported from the troposphere into the stratosphere by global monsoon convection account for approximately 40% of background stratospheric aerosols worldwide, exceeding the contribution from volcanic aerosol injections, according to measurements from nine airborne field campaigns and model analyses.

The growth of planets like Earth through the accretion of pebble-sized material may produce water as pebbles settle through a H₂-rich atmosphere and FeO reduces to Fe-rich metal and water, according to experiments of mafic lithologies melted in H₂.

Seafloor mapping before and after the catastrophic 2022 Hunga eruption showed that the centre of the volcano collapsed by over 1 km, displacing 8.9 ± 0.1 km³ of material. Geophysical surveys show that the caldera collapse occurred during the climactic eruption, triggering extreme tsunami hazards, a stratospheric eruption plume and the breakage of underwater cables.

A warming climate may weaken the influence of the South Asian monsoon on Mediterranean summers, as shifting heat and wind patterns reduce its impact on regional weather, according to climate model projections under a high-emissions scenario.

Climate models that do not consider the influence of rainfall on surface ocean CO₂ uptake are underestimating the ocean carbon sink by about 10%, according to a reassessment of rainfall-related dilution on air–sea CO₂ fluxes.

Deep-sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and North Atlantic Ocean responded differently to the expansion of the Antarctic ice sheet at the Eocene–Oligocene transition, according to benthic foraminiferal clumped isotope records.

Melts generated at the Martian core–mantle boundary would be strongly enriched in iron and have high densities favouring the formation of a molten silicate layer previously suggested from InSight seismic data, according to experimental constraints.

Cyclostratigraphic analysis of a ~1.2 billion-year-old rhythmically bedded mudstone formation in the Grand Canyon shows that the frequency and amplitude of Milanković cycles were markedly different than the present.

Rapid caldera collapse during submarine eruptions could increase tsunami magnitude, suggests an analysis of the geomorphological evolution of the caldera formed in the climactic eruption of Hunga volcano (Tonga) in 2022.

Our global analysis of multi-source, multilayer soil moisture datasets shows that droughts become particularly damaging when moisture deficits occur simultaneously throughout the soil profile, eliminating vertical hydrological buffering. These vertically compound droughts have intensified across much of the globe and pose a growing threat to carbon uptake in forests and croplands.

The single-cell Hadley circulation on Mars limits the mixing of materials across the cell’s interior and exterior, and it also leads to a pole-to-pole connection. This regime is created by the dominance of the mean flow over turbulences, which are dampened by the rapid temperature relaxation in the Martian atmosphere.

Since 1725, weather extremes in Western Europe have been closely linked to the Atlantic–European jet stream, which is projected to strengthen by 2100 while becoming less extreme, according to daily sea-level pressure records and climate model simulations.

An analysis of data from 15 subduction zones finds no relationship between metrics of the topography of the plate interface and the largest earthquake it can generate, implying that this topography is not a key control on subduction zone seismicity.

The minerals needed to transport water into the deepest parts of the Earth’s mantle remain unclear. High-pressure and -temperature experiments conducted at lower-mantle conditions suggest that iron oxyhydroxide phases may be important to such transport.

Dense iron oxyhydroxide phases may form from an early basal magma ocean, trapping water and potentially contributing to the formation of thermochemical anomalies in the deep mantle, according to high-pressure and high-temperature experiments.

The soot fraction of global black carbon emissions increased from 16% in 1750 to 35% in 2019, mainly driven by fossil fuel consumption, suggesting a higher warming potential per unit mass, according to an analysis of atmospheric measurements.