The use of fossil fuels alters both the concentration and the carbon isotope composition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Since surface water exchanges carbon dioxide with the atmosphere, this also alters the isotopic composition of the carbon dissolved in the ocean. In a study, a team from MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen has now determined how deep this so-called Suess effect has already penetrated into the North Atlantic.

Researchers found that wildfire smoke and rain, through relatively infrequent, can deliver disproportionally large amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to ecosystems. Analyzing satellite smoke observations and national network rainfall data from 250 sites across 16 climate regions in 2014, 2020 and 2022, the study found a striking increase in smoke-rain days in 2022 compared with 2014, with regional hotspots shifted from year to year. The findings show wildfire emissions can be an important source of material deposited into ecosystems, but not necessarily in a way that benefits growth or productivity.

Selma Sarı and an international group of colleagues investigate the TOL-1 section in the Mut Basin (southern Türkiye), documenting the world’s highest known late Middle Pleistocene (MIS 7) marine deposits, preserved at 1177 m above mean sea level on the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau.

Pure water only freezes at around minus 38 degrees Celsius. Tiny mineral dust particles act as so‑called ice nucleators—crystallization seeds on which ice crystals form. A research team at Bielefeld University and the University of Vienna in cooperation with researchers from Helsinki University has now demonstrated for the first time, at the molecular scale, why the mineral microcline is particularly effective at forming ice in clouds. Published in a renowned scientific journal, the study provides a new explanation for processes that influence climate and precipitation worldwide.