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GC Insights: Consistency in pyrocartography starts with color

Fire progression maps (FPMs) provide information regarding wildland fire spread (progress) through time to broad audiences. However, information regarding the best use of color to denote fire progression via maps is limited. This can potentially limit a map's ability to effectively communicate information by creating inconsistent messaging and accessibility challenges. Here, I provide color map recommendations to open a discussion towards consistent and accessible fire progression mapping.

Sedimentary ancient DNA insights into foraminiferal diversity near the grounding line in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica

Ancient foraminiferal DNA is studied in five Antarctic cores with sediments up to 25 kyr old. We use a standard and a new, more effective marker, which may become the next standard for paleoenvironmental studies. Much less diverse foraminifera occur on slopes of submarine moraines than in open-marine settings. Soft-walled foraminifera, not found in the fossil record, are especially abundant. There is no foraminiferal DNA in tills, suggesting its destruction during glacial redeposition.

Explaining the period fluctuation of the quasi-biennial oscillation

The paper addresses a fundamental but unresolved question about the tropical stratospheric wind oscillation: why does the period of the oscillation fluctuate irregularly? We use global reanalysis data to provide evidence that the oscillation period is primarily modulated by seasonal variations in small-scale atmospheric wave activity. The findings have implications for seasonal and climate predictions.

Mean ocean temperature change and decomposition of the benthic δ¹⁸O record over the past 4.5 million years

We reconstruct changes in mean ocean temperature (ΔMOT) over the last 4.5 Myr. We find that the ratio of ΔMOT to changes in global mean sea surface temperature was around 0.5 before the Middle Pleistocene transition but was 1 thereafter. We subtract our ΔMOT reconstruction from the global δ18O record to derive the δ18O of seawater. Finally, we develop a theoretical understanding of why the ratio of ΔMOT / ΔGMSST changed over the Plio-Pleistocene.

Quantified ice-nucleating ability of AgI-containing seeding particles in natural clouds

We analyzed the ability of silver iodide particles (a commonly used cloud-seeding agent) to form ice crystals in naturally occurring liquid clouds at −5 to −8 °C and found that only ≈ 0.1 %−1 % of particles nucleate ice, with a negative dependence on temperature. By contextualizing our results with previous laboratory studies, we help to bridge the gap between laboratory and field experiments, which also helps to inform future cloud-seeding projects.

Calcium is associated with specific soil organic carbon decomposition products

SOIL
DOI 10.5194/soil-11-381-2025
20 May 2025

This study shows that calcium (Ca) preserves soil organic carbon (SOC) in acidic soils, challenging beliefs that their interactions were limited to near-neutral or alkaline soils. Using spectromicroscopy, we found that Ca was co-located with a specific fraction of carbon, rich in aromatic and phenolic groups. This association was disrupted when Ca was removed but was reformed during decomposition with added Ca. Overall, this suggests that Ca amendments could enhance SOC stability.

Multifractality of climate networks

We have developed a systematic approach to study the climate system at multiple scales using climate networks, which have been previously used to study correlations between time series in space at only a single scale. This new approach is used to upscale precipitation climate networks to study the Indian summer monsoon and to analyze strong dependencies between spatial regions, which change with changing scales.

Social sensing a volcanic eruption: application to Kīlauea, 2018

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-25-1681-2025
13 May 2025

Protecting lives and livelihoods during volcanic eruptions is the key challenge in volcanology. Analysing social media usage during volcanic crises can help us better understand the impacts of volcanic eruptions and how warning messages are received and actioned, to eventually better protect those people and their livelihoods. Our work shows how social media data could be used in real time during a volcanic crisis to learn more about volcanic eruptions.

Surficial sediment remobilization by shear between sediment and water above tsunamigenic megathrust ruptures: experimental study

We propose a new mechanism of co-seismic sediment entrainment induced by shear stress at the sediment–water interface during major subduction earthquakes rupturing to the trench. Physical experiments show that flow velocities consistent with long-period earthquake motions can entrain synthetic marine sediment, and high-frequency vertical shaking can enhance this mobilization. They validate the proposed entrainment mechanism, which opens new avenues for paleoseismology in deep-sea environments.

Cold-water coral mounds are effective carbon sinks in the western Mediterranean Sea

Cold-water coral mounds are large structures on the seabed that are built by corals over thousands of years. They are regarded as carbonate sinks, with a potentially important role in the marine carbon cycle, but more quantitative studies are needed. Using sediment cores, we calculate the amount of carbon that has been stored in two mounds over the last 400 000 years. We provide the first numbers and show that up to 19 times more carbon is accumulated in mounds than on the common seafloor.

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