The Pacific El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) generates climate extremes that endanger ecosystems, infrastructure, and human well-being worldwide. The response of this system to climate warming is p...

A short post, highlighting three papers published in recent weeks that I have had the fortune of contributing to. All use networks of drip loggers in caves to record water movement from the surface to the water table. First, led by Akhilesh Kumar at UNSW Sydney, is a satellite remote sensing study. Can we use satellite-derived products, such as rainfall, vegetation characteristics and soil moisture, to understand when recharge events might occur?

Opposing wet and dry conditions in Central and mainland Southeast Asia over the past millennium were controlled by climate variability over the Pacific and Indian oceans, a pattern likely to become mo...

The Fire Hypothesis posits fire catalyzed the late Miocene C4 grassland expansion but few proxy studies resolved both fuel type and fire South China Sea (Ocean Drilling Program Site 1146) sedimen...

The PAGES-SISAL (Past Global Changes – Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and AnaLysis) team has created a new global database of cave monitoring data consisting of drip rates and drip water isotopes, and the modern carbonate precipitates that form from these drip waters (so called farmed carbonates, grown on artificial substrates). The preprint is now available for community comment at: The preprint is led by Pauline Treble (ANSTO, Australia):

We analyze modern leaf waxes in near-shore marine sediments spanning a north–south transect along the coast of western North America Leaf wax hydrogen isotope values become more negative at the l...

For the first time, scientists have measured atmospheric gases from the late Pliocene, yielding data that could help to predict the future climate

Thanks to the amazing UNSW team for producing this story on our groundwater and climate research: past, present and future, featuring Marilu Melo Zurita, Martin Andersen, Ellen Corrick, Danyang Sun, Akhilesh Kumar, Muqing Dong and Nane Weber. Some of the research featured is supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) infrastructure and Laureate Fellowship grants, and this media story would not have been possible without the support of the team at Wellington Caves. The long read (thanks to Melissa Lyne): The YouTube video (3 minutes):

The promise and pitfalls of using AI tools to boost my capabilities as a scientist

Paleoclimates provide examples of past climate change that inform estimates of modern warming from greenhouse-gas emissions, known as Earth’s clima...

A hand stencil painted on a cave wall on a small island off the coast of Sulawesi more than 67,800 years ago suggests a very early occupation of Wallacea.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

Under future warming, Pacific wind changes reduce Indonesian Throughflow surface transport through the Halmahera Sea Future Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation decline induces oceanic adj...

The end of the year is approaching, and the papers and pre-prints are still coming from the groundwater and climate research team here and our collaborators. Here is a summary of our outputs the last three months of the year. All are open-access, with links provided below Most recently, my photo made the cover of the Eos Buzz Newsletter, where Stacey Priestley (CSIRO) led this article with myself, Wendy Timms (Deakin), Margaret Shanafield (Flinders) and Martin Andersen (UNSW).

Paleorecords of the Southeast Asian autumn monsoon indicate that global sea-level change drove abrupt shifts in rainfall, yet the magnitude of these c…

How have natural variability and anthropogenic forcing shaped Indian Summer Mon...

Paleorecords of the Southeast Asian autumn monsoon indicate that global sea-level change drove abrupt shifts in rainfall, yet the magnitude of these c…

As teams grow, new Ph.D. graduates are less likely to land tenure-track jobs and more likely to leave science—especially women and international researchers

Stalagmite record reveals 1- to 13-year droughts in NW Yucatán from 871 to 1021 CE, a time of profound Maya cultural change.

A network of proxy records shows western North American hydroclimate and Pacific sea surface temperature co-evolved during the Holocene The western North America became wetter while the eastern e...

Projected precipitation decreases due to anthropogenic climate change will have serious consequences for the millions of households in Central America that rely on rainfed agriculture. However, a sign...

The northern African summer monsoon was unaffected by global cooling at the end of the Pliocene 3 million years ago.

• Cloud feedbacks, particularly the cloud shortwave radiation term, dominate the climate sensitivity of GISS-E2.1-G. • We have set the stage to eliminate some of the climate sensitivity and model para...

Efforts to shrink staff, budget, and focus have alarmed members of Congress

The National Science Foundation, a major government funder of basic science research, is being shaken up, with over 1,000 grants already terminated and the White House looking to halve its budget.

President Donald Trump and his administration have gutted science agencies, terminated research programmes and cancelled billions of dollars in grants to universities. What are the long-term impacts f...

This was just sent to all NASA Goddard and GISS employees by Makenzie Lystrup

While the amount saved through federal lease cancellations by the Trump administration has decreased nationwide, New York's contribution has increased. Here's the latest.