Volume 19 Issue 2, February 2026

Erosion by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet can supply iron to the Southern Ocean, with iron solubility as important as iron quantity in shaping ocean productivity and carbon cycling. The future projection of ocean carbon dynamics will therefore require integration of ice-sheet processes into ocean biogeochemistry models.

Spodumene links Earth’s tectonic history with the modern energy transition. Chen Chen and colleagues explore how tectonic cycles concentrate lithium into this mineral and how industrial extraction support a low-carbon future.

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.

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.

Atmospheric chemistry models and observation networks in China may underestimate particulate dry nitrogen deposition due to inadequate representation of the particle size distribution and dry deposition mechanisms, impacting nitrogen deposition modelling used for public health decisions and climate change projections.

The extreme hot and dry conditions of 2023 reduced soil respiration and enhanced net forest carbon sequestration in Canada, offsetting wildfire emissions, according to satellite-based and in situ observations of CO₂ fluxes.

Tropical cyclones cool the ocean surface less than previously thought, indicating that current projections may underestimate their future intensity and frequency, according to an analysis of global sea surface drifters data over 1992–2021.

Landfalling tropical cyclones generally accelerate as they approach coastlines due to changes in surface roughness and thermal properties, according to numerical modelling simulations and global observations.

Genetic and isotopic analyses of samples from the northeast Atlantic reveal that suspended prokaryotic dark carbon fixation substantially fuels carbon inputs below the sunlit ocean, while particle-attached communities make an overlooked contribution to carbon demand.

Iron derived from debris eroded by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet rather than from dust deposition drove variations in carbon export in the South Pacific Antarctic region over the past 500,000 years, according to geochemical proxies from a sediment core.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet responded to different natural forcing mechanisms than the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the mid-Pliocene due to a greater sensitivity to oceanic feedbacks, according to iceberg-rafted debris records and ice-sheet modelling experiments.

The ~500-metre-thick Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland completely deglaciated 7,000 years ago, highlighting the sensitivity of the ice sheet to mid-Holocene warming, according to luminescence and geochemical data from sub-ice sediments and ice cores.

Glaciers in New Zealand retreated at about the same time as mid-latitude glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere during Heinrich Stadials, indicating strong global teleconnections during the last glacial period, according to a marine sediment record.

Anti-phased changes in Antarctic Circumpolar Current strength between the Indian and Pacific sectors of the Southern Ocean occurred on orbital timescales over the past one million years, linked to glacial cycles and obliquity forcing, according to proxy records and modelling.

Large benthic oxygen isotope fluctuations in the Oligocene Southern Ocean primarily represent deep water temperature changes, suggesting the Antarctic ice sheet volume was relatively stable, according to a clumped isotope record.

Periodic marine oxygen oscillations occurred throughout the middle Ediacaran Gaskiers Glaciation, probably stemming from increased organic carbon burial destabilizing ocean redox systems, according to geochemical constraints and modelling.

The difference in rupture speed between fault segments in the 2023 M_w 7.8 Kahramanmaraş earthquake may be explained by the contrasting structure of and stress on these segments, according to seismic tomographic imaging of beneath the fault zone.