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Analysis of mineral inclusions in magmas that crystallized before and after the Great Oxidation Event reveals marked changes in the oxidation state of sulfur — owing to the recycling into the mantle of sediments that had been geochemically altered at the surface by atmospheric events.

Measurements from a yearlong drift in sea ice across the Central Arctic show that large amounts of fine sea salt particles are produced during blowing snow events, affecting cloud properties and warming the surface.

Fine sea salt aerosols produced by blowing snow in the Arctic impact cloud properties and warm the surface, according to observations from the MOSAiC expedition.

While generally tracking Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, the Earth gained energy during cold millennial scale events throughout the past 150,000 years, according to an analysis of benthic oxygen isotopes.

Subduction of sediments shaped geochemically by an increasingly oxidized atmosphere shifted the redox state of the mantle during the early Proterozoic, according to an analysis of sulfur speciation in apatites from ancient igneous zircons.

Fluids at the plate interface are sourced from the dehydrating slab mantle beneath the Shumagin Gap in Alaska, and contribute to regional seismic risk by influencing rupture propagation, according to magnetotelluric observations and electrical resistivity modelling.

The chemical signatures of granitic continental crust from the earliest Archean are consistent with formation during subduction, indicating some form of plate tectonics was active at the time.

Improving air quality by reducing atmospheric aerosols can bring valuable health benefits, but also generally leads to warming. Now, research suggests that in cleaner air the local cooling effect of planting trees may be stronger in middle and low latitude regions.

Early continental crust formed at depth, implying some type of plate tectonics operating as long as 4 billion years ago, according to high-pressure and temperature melting experiments of an analogue material.

Climate model simulations suggest that reducing aerosol pollution enhances the cooling effects of afforestation, which could partially counteract the warming effect of air quality measures.

The temporal evolution of the net global climate feedback in recent decades has been governed by sea surface temperature patterns in the Southern Ocean, according to climate model simulations.

Two decades of measurements across large Arctic rivers reveal unexpectedly divergent biogeochemical changes that have important implications for the Arctic Ocean. This calls for an improved understanding of current disruptions over the boundless Arctic landscape.

Divergent trends in biogeochemical constituents of the six largest rivers in the Arctic from 2003 to 2019 support multi-faceted changes on the Arctic landscape under global environmental change.

The triple oxygen isotope composition of quartz veins indicates that the southern Tibetan Plateau was already around 3.5 km high by 60 million years ago, showing that substantial surface uplift started before collision of the Eurasian and Indian plates.

A 3-year field experiment suggests plant responses to elevated CO₂ in phosphorus-limited grasslands depends on the biogeochemical interplay between soil microbes and plants.

Tackling plastic pollution not only requires improved understanding of environmental dynamics of plastics, but also needs turning scientific insights into actions.

There is a large discrepancy between estimates of oceanic plastic input and the amount of plastic measured floating at the ocean surface. Model results show that this can be explained by large objects being underestimated in previous mass budget analyses, combined with lower input estimates.

A 3D global marine plastic mass budget suggests that larger items contribute more than 95% of buoyant plastics by mass and are longer lived than previously estimated, which suggests there is no missing sink of marine plastic pollution.

Atmospheric short-wave absorption due to wildfire smoke is caused predominantly by dark brown carbon particles, according to observations from smoke plumes in the United States.

Analysis of the microfossil content of sediment cores from areas where thick Arctic sea ice persists today reveals that a subpolar species associated with Atlantic water expanded deep into the Arctic Ocean during the Last Interglacial. This finding implies that summers in the Arctic were likely sea-ice-free during this period.