A vital system of Atlantic Ocean currents is weakening and closer to collapse than thought, new studies find | CNN New research provides alarming evidence this ocean circulation is slowing and could be heading toward a shutdown, which would have catastrophic impacts on the planet’s weather and climate.

New study: most climate models underestimate the decline of the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC. The AMOC is on course to slow by more than 50% by the end of the century. 🌊
Very likely the AMOC will then be past the tipping point for full shutdown. 😨
us.cnn.com/2026/04/16/c...

A BGS employee at Dynamic Earth demonstrating how landslides work with a model and some Lego. A couple of children look on, smiling and engaged.

We're at Dynamic Earth on Wednesday next week, as part of Edinburgh Science Festival!

Join us as we talk about volcanoes, space weather and Scotland's unique rocks and fossils.

It's free to visit, so make sure to pop down and say hello!
www.edinburghscience.co.uk/event/britis...

Atlantic exceptionalism in the twentieth century - Nature Climate Change The North Atlantic is exceptional in cooling during the twentieth century while the world warmed. Here we look back on an influential 2015 study that linked this cooling to a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and consider the wider implications that this may have for climate, ecosystems and society.

AMOC weakening may drive the North Atlantic ‘cold blob,’ echoing abrupt paleoclimate events and cascading through climate, ecosystems, and society.

News & Views
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Meridionally consistent decline in the observed western boundary contribution to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Western boundary observations in the Atlantic suggest a meridionally consistent decline in the ocean overturning circulation.

The Atlantic’s “conveyor belt” is slowing.

New observations from 16.5°–42.5°N show a two-decade, basin-wide decline in deep western overturning, the first robust observational evidence that the AMOC is weakening, confirming long-standing model predictions.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Looking forward to the first workshop of our new @pages-ipo.bsky.social working group IMPACT in Bern in May !

Putative trophic structure of the Chaohu Fauna (Spathian, Early Triassic), briefly compared with that of the latest Smithian fish faunas

Summary of coprolite morphotypes identified from the Chaohu Fauna, Majiashan, Chaohu, China.

When fossil shite speaks up:
"The coprolite record reveals a multi-tiered trophic structure in which marine reptiles had already occupied meso- and apex consumer roles by the Early Triassic."
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio #Macroecology

How did ancient bugs get so big? The prevailing theory may be wrong Flying insect respiratory systems suggest abundant oxygen can’t explain ancient gigantism

“This study places what may be the final nail in the coffin for the prevailing view that more oxygen made ancient insects bigger.”

Learn more: https://scim.ag/4vcqqS8

A short paper by Josep Pelegri (2025) reviews the past, present and future of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC): 🌊🧪 doi.org/10.3989/scim...

Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat

Some climate change facts:

2015–2025 = hottest decade observed

🌊 ~90% of excess heat stored in the oceans

Heat gain ≈ 18× global energy use

Rate is accelerating, not stabilizing

This isn’t just warming; it’s a system moving further out of equilibrium

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Broadly stable atmospheric CO2 and CH4 levels over the past 3 million years - Nature Blue ice records from Antarctica are used to determine methane and carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 3 million years.

While everyone is (rightly) obsessed with levels of CO2 in the atmosphere 3 million years ago, don't sleep the observation that avg. atmospheric methane (CH4) DOES NOT APPEAR TO HAVE CHANGED AT ALL over the last 3 million years (1/4). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Morozovella??🤔🤔

Climate snapshots trapped in ancient ice tell a surprising story Antarctic ice cores hint that changes in the ocean might have played a larger part than have greenhouse gases in key climate shifts of the past three million years.

Climate snapshots trapped in ancient ice tell a surprising story www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Deccan Traps live on 🦕🌋

(Réunion is thought to be the still-erupting expression of a hotspot that started massively erupting in India right around the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, so much so that the lava then could have covered the lower 48 United States 600 feet deep)

New paper with our long-term collaborators from CUG Wuhan (led by Xinyue Dang), showing a threshold response in soil moisture that induces an abrupt shift in soil microbial community and methane emissions. @ogu-bristol.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social @cabot-institute.bsky.social

Stable Isotopes in Ecology Intro This is "Stable Isotopes in Ecology Intro" by GAEAcademy on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Pleased to see lots of new registrants for our Stable Isotope Ecology course on the GAEA platform. Learn more and register for this and other courses at www.gaea.ac.uk
@isotopesuk.bsky.social ky.social
vimeo.com/757190807

Environmental Controls on Green Bands in Marine Sediments In the modern ocean, the appearance of dark colored diagenetic bands is associated with high bottom water oxygen At two core sites in the path of North Atlantic Deep Water, green bands are found ...

Ancient ocean oxygen left green bands on the seafloor

Million-yr records reveal sediment bands formed as deep waters re-oxygenated after low-O2 phases during Pleistocene glaciations; a hidden archive of Earth’s breathing

Our new IODP EXP361 paper 👇

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

What Ian said! 👇

@olakwiecien3.bsky.social @drjosephgraly.bsky.social

Ultimate main character energy... 💅

Gephyrocapsa huxleyi is less than 5 microns wide (you could fit about 20 on the tip of a needle), yet it insists on being visible from actual space.

SEM Micrographs: Frieda Schlegel
Satellite Imagery: ESA (European Space Agency)

Last day @sosbangor.bsky.social before our 23 day cruise on the RRS Discovery for the SeaSTORE project. We'll be studying the impact of bottom trawling on seabed carbon stocks. We'll study the chronic and immediate impacts.

The implications of overshooting 1.5 °C on Earth system tipping elements - a review

"Global warming must peak below 2°C, return to below 1.5°C as quickly as possible (i.e. within this century), and to around 1°C thereafter to limit tipping point risks".

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

I see part of a crinoid stem😅

New Version out 😀

Diagram: Pleistocene-Holocene-Anthropocene 2025 (2026)

zenodo.org/records/1864...

With updated data ☝️. For teaching, public lectures etc etc...

Brought to you by @leizarchaeology.bsky.social research focus "Human-Environment Interactions"

@niklashausmann.bsky.social

An artist’s interpretation of life and death after the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. The three hair-covered forms (left) represent species of plankton found inside the crater made by the impact. The geometric form (bottom left) is a species of algae. The bones belong to an extinct marine reptile. The University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences/John Maisano.

How long does it take to recover from a mass extinction? It might be a very short time, geologically speaking, maybe no more than a mere few millennia. On the scale of humans... that is still a substantial chunk of time. 🧪⚒️

Link: pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3C of global heating Advisory board member says adapting is ‘not rocket science’ but Europe already paying price for lack of preparation

I really hope everyone understands that this antiscientific nonsense that totally ignores tipping points, first of all the AMOC. Shameful stuff tbh.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Map showing above average groundwater over much of the UK in January 2026

Map showing above average precipitation over much of UK in January 2026 apart from western Scotland and northwest England and Wales

Map showing some exceptionally high river flows in eastern Scotland, Northern Ireland & southern England during January 2026

Map showing variable soil moisture over UK in January 2026

Very wet January 2026 over many UK regions with flooding & some exceptionally high river flows in eastern Scotland, Northern Ireland & southern England plus rising groundwater & reservoir stocks so elevated flood risk in @ukceh.bsky.social hydrological outlook 🌧️💦 nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/sites/defaul...

The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases - Nature Ecology & Evolution The authors survey community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databas...

The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases. Nat Ecol Evol (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Concerned about the Point of No Return? Today we published a paper on the risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory. You can read it here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1mbW49C~Iu...

Peer review should be a short term paid contract akin to a journal editor. Why this vital scientific process is left entirely to voluntary participation actually dumbfounds me...

Storm-hit Devon road 'a mess' after it breaks up and washes away Storms cause a section of seafront road between Torcross and Slapton to break apart overnight.

A reminder that we live on a geologically active planet! This road was much tranversed by @ueaenv.bsky.social students and myself on the Slapton Field course just back in Apr 2023!!!🌊 🛣️
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Environmental changes at the seafloor of the Faro drift (Gulf of Cadiz) during the transition from the Early to the Middle Pleistocene Abstract. This study explores the ecology of the benthic foraminifera fauna and reconstructs bottom water oxygenation, organic matter fluxes, and Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) dynamics in the Gulf...

My freshly and first PhD related paper is out! I can’t believe it was published one day before my birthday 🎂

jm.copernicus.org/articles/45/...