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Climate change drove Late Miocene to Pliocene rise and fall of C₄ vegetation at the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia (Anatolia, Türkiye)

We present a new stable carbon isotope dataset from Anatolian Late Miocene to Holocene soil carbonates, which reveals that C₄ grasslands emerged during Late Miocene Cooling. Uniquely, Anatolia saw a persistent return to C₃ vegetation in the Early Pliocene, which impacted mammal populations. We link the return to C₃vegetation to changes in rainfall seasonality, thereby tying ecosystem responses to climatic shifts in a hotspot of projected anthropogenic climatic change.

Modelling primary production: multitude of theories, or multitude of languages?

Marine primary production (PP) is a key component of the Earth's climate system, but its current estimates and future projections are highly uncertain. We review the PP uncertainties and discuss their sources both across the ecosystem and satellite models. We propose to reduce the PP uncertainties by better addressing the PP model structures and parametrizations. We also argue that for many models it is desirable to consider spatial and temporal variability in the model parameter values.

Developing Guidelines for working with Multi-Model Ensembles in CMIP

Multi-model ensembles are a key approach in climate model analysis, but their use involves many complex considerations. In this work, we review relevant literature and synthesize existing studies to contribute to the development of guidelines for designing and conducting ensemble analyses. This is complemented by a collection of useful resources and a discussion of emerging trends, supported by statistics tracing the number of publications.

The Scotland–Canada overturning array (SCOTIA): twenty years of meridional overturning in the subpolar North Atlantic

The Atlantic ocean circulation that helps regulate climate is expected to weaken this century. Long-term measurements in the subtropics now show signs of weakening, but northern data are shorter and more variable. By combining several observing systems, we reconstructed northern circulation since 2004 and found strong ups and downs, but no clear long-term weakening so far.

Coastal process understanding through automated identification of recurring surface dynamics in permanent laser scanning data of a sandy beach

We developed a new method to automatically detect and group short-term topographic changes on sandy beaches using hourly 3D laser scans collected over three years. By distinguishing variations in patterns of sand deposition and erosion, the approach allows scientists to study how beaches change at different moments in time and link these changes to environmental conditions like winds, waves or bulldozers, improving understanding and prediction of dynamics of sandy beaches.

First Alps-wide reconstruction of LGM glacial sediment transport enabled by GPU-accelerated particle tracking

This study reconstructs for the first time the transport-pathways of sediments by glaciers during the last glaciation of the European Alps, 24000 years ago. This helps us understand how the European Alps were shaped by past glaciations and helps us better constrain the mechanisms of iceflow, glacier erosion and the movement of large sediment masses by ice. This breakthrough is achieved by coupling a smart particle-tracking algorithm to a machine-learning-enhanced glacier evolution model.

Quantification of the influence of anthropogenic and natural factors on the record-high temperatures in 2023 and 2024

Global mean surface temperature anomalies in 2023 and 2024 were the highest on the modern record. We quantify contributions to these anomalies from human activity, including the steep reduction in sulfur emissions from ships that began in 2020, and numerous natural factors. We attribute about 92% of the observed anomalies to a combination of various human-induced and natural factors, including important contributions from the reduction in marine sulfur emissions and the Indian Ocean Dipole.

A method for quantifying correlation in the shape of oceanographic profile data

Oceanographic profiles comprise measurements of variables across depths. Here, a method is presented to calculate the correlation between profiling datasets by quantifying profile shape variability. This enables dependencies between multiple variables, and spatial or temporal changes in a single variable, to be described. Two case studies demonstrate the method using profiling data from a stationary mooring and drifting floats.

Review article: 30 years of airborne radar surveys on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets by the Alfred Wegener Institute

This review synthesizes 30 years of Alfred Wegener Institute’s (AWI) airborne radar research in Antarctica and Greenland, detailing six radar systems and their applications in studying ice dynamics, basal properties, and subglacial landscapes. Moreover, it introduces the public release of AWI's airborne radar datasets via the Radar Data over Polar Ice Sheets Viewer and PANGAEA, ensuring findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable access for future polar research.

Ideas and perspectives: Mineralizing fluid control on foreign elements in biogenic CaCO₃: insights from otoliths

Fish otolith formation is key for understanding the incorporation of elements into biominerals. It is often assumed that the final step of biomineralization consists of inorganic precipitation as the fluid where biominerals form can hardly be sampled. Thanks to fish ear anatomy, this can be overcome with otoliths. By comparing otolith formation and inorganic precipitation, we proved that this assumption is not always true. Our findings could refine models and shed light on biomineralization.

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