Research Briefing

Top-down inversion modelling, coupled with data from ten observing stations across China, reveals that the country’s emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) grew during the period 2011–2021. However, over a similar period, non-Annex 1 countries (mostly developing countries under the UN climate framework), excluding China, are shown to be the largest contributors to the global growth in HFC emissions.

Long-term field experiments demonstrate that elevated CO₂ and warming synergistically constrain phosphorus availability to plants by promoting its retention in iron–organic matter complexes and microbial biomass, thereby intensifying nutrient limitations that might threaten rice yields under future climate conditions.

Our study demonstrated that zonal asymmetry is a fundamental and persistent characteristic of Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) strength over orbital timescales. This asymmetric behaviour reshapes our understanding of how the ACC interacts with Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics, modulates global ocean circulation and influences the carbon cycle across past and future climate states.

Projections using a machine-learning model, trained on historical socioeconomic and water-resources data, reveal the impact of inequality on water security and predict that, by 2100, 63% of the global population could face severe water scarcity. Pathways of societal development driven by technological efficiency could result in even greater inequality and water insecurity.

Global drifter data reveal that tropical cyclone-induced sea surface cooling in storm-affected areas is far weaker than indicated by estimates from microwave satellites and state-of-the-art climate models. Despite enhanced self-induced cooling driven by greenhouse warming, tropical cyclones are fuelled by a sea surface warming trend that is about twice the tropical mean warming.

High-resolution global climate simulations reveal that mesoscale moisture convergence, rather than thermodynamic effects alone, drives much of the projected intensification of extreme rainfall under warming. These results demonstrate that better representing mesoscale dynamics substantially improves the robustness of future rainfall projections, offering critical insights for flood-risk assessment and climate adaptation.

Our simulations identified how small, swirling ocean eddies carry and mix warm water beneath Thwaites ice cavities in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica. Much like how storms in the atmosphere batter coastlines, these energetic eddies enhanced mixing at the ice-shelf base and substantially increased submarine melting.

Nitrite, a key player in the ocean’s nitrogen cycle, accumulates in deoxygenated waters for reasons that remain unclear. Our chemostat and three-dimensional models showed that competition amongst aerobic (oxygen-dependent) and anaerobic (oxygen-independent) microbes, rather than a lack of nitrite consumers, contributes to nitrite’s accumulation in anoxic waters.

Geochemical heterogeneity in near-continent oceanic volcanism hints at overlooked mantle enrichment processes. Models and data from the Indian Ocean suggest that rift-related convective instabilities can disturb the ancient roots of continents. This process sweeps geochemically enriched domains into the oceanic asthenosphere over tens of millions of years, explaining the observed longevity of geochemical mantle anomalies.

Our analysis of mineral deposits in a cave in North Greenland reveals a sensitive High Arctic Late Miocene climate at moderate CO₂ levels, balanced between wetter and warmer permafrost-free conditions and ephemeral glacier expansion.

Analysis of satellite remote sensing and geophysical data reveals that following the loss of stabilizing fast ice, an Antarctic Peninsula glacier retreated at a record pace due to a fast calving and flotation process that occurred as it reached an ‘ice plain’, where the ice is lightly resting on bedrock.

Over a prolonged period of hydrologic drought, the major ion chemistry of a North American river dramatically shifted, revealing reduced lateral carbon transport due to secondary carbonate formation. These observations expose a natural limit to the inorganic carbon carrying capacity of rivers.

High-resolution satellite maps of the contiguous USA spanning 35 years reveal a fundamental shift in land disturbances: the area affected by human-directed disturbances is decreasing, whereas land damaged by ‘wild’ disturbances (like fire, vegetation stress, wind, and geohazards) is surging. This work also uncovers evolving patterns in the frequency, size, and severity of disturbances.

Geophysical observations and computer simulations suggest that a tectonic plate segment is delaminating in the area that generated a large earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in 1755. This rare oceanic delamination might be a precursor of subduction initiation, which could explain the cause of several large earthquakes in the Atlantic Ocean.

A dataset of cosmogenic beryllium-7 measurements is compiled and used to quantify aerosol deposition rates over the global ocean. The findings suggest that aerosol deposition onto oceans has been underestimated in a widely used atmospheric composition model, GEOS-Chem, resulting in an overestimation of aerosol lifetime over oceans.

A decade-long field experiment reveals that topsoil nitrogen stocks in a permafrost ecosystem decreased by 7.7% following eight years of warming. This reduction could be largely attributed to increased nitrogen retention by perennial plant biomass, and increased nitrogen losses through leaching and gaseous emissions from soils.

The combination of plate motion and intraplate stress with a high-resolution, plate-boundary-resolving, global convection model has made it possible to holistically evaluate plate driving forces and reveal that Sumatra–Java slab pull is the predominant driver of the India–Eurasia collision. This suggests the growth of the Tibetan Plateau required external forces from adjacent subduction zones.

Analysis of millimetre-sized fragments from asteroid Bennu suggests that its parent asteroid coalesced in the outer Solar System from primordial nebular dust and ice and was poor in chondrules, objects common in primitive meteorites. Abundant phyllosilicates with minor sulfides, carbonates and magnetite formed during early alteration by water, with evaporite minerals forming later.

Lignin and the monophenols that constitute this polymer promote methane production in anoxic ecosystems, contributing an estimated 1.2–14.2% of methane emissions in peatland. The methoxy group can be directly converted to methane by methanogens. Consequently, increased lignin input to peatland from shrub encroachment would release more methane than previously thought.

Lake shores are fringed with aquatic plants, but their very high productivity has been overlooked in global lake carbon budgets. We estimate the carbon fluxes of lake littoral zones and show that the carbon balance of lakes can reverse from a carbon source to a carbon sink when these zones are included.