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An update to our policy on reporting requirements for geological and palaeontological materials aims to tackle ethical issues surrounding the collection, traceability and archiving of field samples.

Enabling public sharing of scientific data in China not only needs top-down mandates but also incentive mechanisms that boost confidence and willingness to engage in data-sharing practices among Chinese researchers.

Sea spray droplets contribute to the exchange of gases between the oceans and atmosphere. Accounting for this spray-mediated pathway may provide more accurate modelling of air–sea interactions and the ocean response to climate change.

At high winds, above 18 metres per second, sea-spray droplets act as a pathway for atmosphere–ocean gas exchange, especially in regions such as the Southern Ocean, according to a chemically modified microphysical model.

Seawater infiltration into oceanic transform faults may control their seismicity extent and slip mode variations, according to numerical models of the mechanical and thermal structure of these faults that account for hydration effects.

The carbon concentration of Earth’s upper mantle increases with depth, indicating a role for carbon in melt formation, according to data on magmatic gases and volcanic rocks from ocean island and continental rift settings around the world.

Sea-level lowstands over the last 360,000 years strongly controlled the timing of eruptions of the Santorini Volcano, according to an analysis of tephras and sea-level records, as well as numerical modelling of the underlying magma chamber.

Terrestrial Southern Hemisphere cooling through the Eocene–Oligocene transition points to decreasing atmospheric CO₂ dominantly driving global change, according to biomarker records from southeast Australian coals and palaeoclimate modelling.

Marine oxygenation declined well before the end-Permian mass extinction, the start of which was marked by a brief return to more oxygenated conditions, according to the analysis of thallium isotopes from sites spread across the Panthalassa ocean basin.

Rotational deceleration has increased daylength on Earth, potentially linking the increased burial of organic carbon by cyanobacterial mats and planetary oxygenation, according to experiments and modelling of Precambrian benthic ecosystems.

A synthesis of intervals of rapid climatic change evident in the geological record reveals some of the Earth system processes and tipping points that could lead to similar events in the future.

Lower CO₂ and more-frequent fires may have supported grassland expansion in the Amazon during the Last Glacial Maximum, according to vegetation modelling using a range of boundary conditions tested against existing pollen records.

The enhanced CO₂ uptake by vegetation in response to powdered rock should be considered in assessing the feasibility of enhanced weathering as a negative emission technology in mitigating climate change, suggest simulations of a land surface model.

Emission controls avoided some 870,000 deaths in China between 2002 and 2017 but further air quality improvements need energy-climate policies and changed economic structure, according to index decomposition analysis and chemical transport models.

Rivers transport about 1,000 Mg mercury annually to coastal oceans, which is threefold greater than the amount delivered by atmospheric deposition, according to a global analysis of mercury measurements in rivers.

Vorticity gradient force balance explains the location and number of circumpolar cyclones at Jupiter’s poles, and the absence of circumpolar cyclones on Saturn, according to calculations.

Slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation from 2004 to 2012 led to a decrease in its relative contribution to North Atlantic carbon accumulation, while the supply from air–sea fluxes increased, according to an analysis of ocean mooring circulation observations.