An exceptional phytoplankton bloom in the southeast Madagascar Sea driven by African dust deposition.

Rising surface temperatures are projected to cause more frequent and intense droughts in the world's drylands. This can lead to land degradation, mobilization of soil particles, and an increase in dust aerosol emissions from arid and semi-arid regions. Dust aerosols are a key source of bio-essential nutrients, can be transported in the atmosphere over large distances, and ultimately deposited onto the ocean's surface, alleviating nutrient limitation and increasing oceanic primary productivity.

Seasonality of downward carbon export in the Pacific Southern Ocean revealed by multi-year robotic observations.

At high latitudes, the biological carbon pump, which exports organic matter from the surface ocean to the interior, has been attributed to the gravitational sinking of particulate organic carbon. Conspicuous deficits in ocean carbon budgets challenge this as a sole particle export pathway. Recent model estimates revealed that particle injection pumps have a comparable downward flux of particulate organic carbon to the biological gravitational pump, but with different seasonality.

Widespread phytoplankton blooms triggered by 2019-2020 Australian wildfires.

Droughts and climate-change-driven warming are leading to more frequent and intense wildfires, arguably contributing to the severe 2019-2020 Australian wildfires. The environmental and ecological impacts of the fires include loss of habitats and the emission of substantial amounts of atmospheric aerosols. Aerosol emissions from wildfires can lead to the atmospheric transport of macronutrients and bio-essential trace metals such as nitrogen and iron, respectively.