AGU Advances
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Volume 6 Issue 1 | February 2025
COMMENTARIES | VIEWPOINTS | RESEARCH ARTICLES | EDITORS’ PICKS FROM OTHER JOURNALS | FEATURED SPECIAL COLLECTION
FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF
This issue of AGU Advances deals with a diversity of research questions that are of interest to the broad community of Earth and space sciences and the public at large. Contributions focus on interlinked disciplines and issues including: atmospheric science, in particular the local net radiative effect of marine clouds and formation of congestus clouds; history of climate through paleoreconstructions; space weather, with a timely article focusing on a May 2024 geomagnetic storm that was the strongest in the preceding two decades, and a study on equatorial plasma bubbles that may adversely affect the modern satellite-based communication and navigation systems. A paper and accompanying viewpoint focus on incision of the central Colorado Plateau during the Pleistocene. An article deals with plate tectonics, in particular the dynamics of subduction zones, while another paper investigates rock strain and deformation caused by volcanic activity. Other contributions focus on nature based solutions for cooling cities, drought frequency under global warming, and the use of satellites to support management of natural disasters. Two contributions in this issue deal with planetary science: an analysis of magnetic measurements near Callisto, a large icy moon of Jupiter, based on data from the Galileo mission, postulating that a deep ocean inside Callisto provides the most compelling interpretation of data; and a study providing a better understanding of the global distribution and geologic context of all the organic-rich sites on Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt. I hope this collection of papers provides you an opportunity to gain a new understanding of the complexity of the Earth and planetary world. —Alberto Montanari, Editor in Chief
COMMENTARIES
VIEWPOINTS
Reading the Record of Baselevel Change, River Incision, and Surface Uplift on the Colorado Plateau
Abbott discusses this issue’s article from Tanski et al. (2025), which reveals new insight into the Colorado Plateau’s surface uplift and exhumation history. Abbott
RESEARCH ARTICLES
A Warming Climate Is Shifting Eurasian Drought Conditions
Researchers use tree ring records to help reconstruct hydroclimate patterns and isolate drivers of drought. Marvel et al.
Ceres’s Organics Might Not Be Homegrown After All
Scientists have been unable to determine whether the dwarf planet’s organics were produced by its own chemical processes or delivered by asteroids. New evidence implicates asteroids. Sarkar et al.
Skewed Subduction Shear Zones
A global reanalysis of both short- and long-term deformation clarifies how obliquity affects strain partitioning in convergent plate boundaries.
Morell et al.
Jupiter’s Moon Callisto Is Very Likely an Ocean World
A closer look at previously disregarded observations reveals stronger evidence that a deep ocean lies beneath Callisto’s icy surface. Cochrane et al.
Ancient Climate Reconstruction Links Past and Future
A new map of climate conditions during the Pliocene epoch—the last time Earth’s carbon dioxide concentrations hit 400 parts per million—could offer clues about possible climatic changes in store for the 21st century. Tierney et al.
Tropical Congestus Clouds Explained by Water Vapor Spectroscopy
A new study demonstrates how the abundance of congestus clouds in the tropics can be explained by the water molecule’s discerning appetite for infrared radiation. Spaulding-Astudillo et al.
Trees Can Cool Cities, But Only with a Little Help
For cities to benefit from trees, city managers must give greenery what it needs to thrive, says new research. Wilkening et al.
Ionospheric Changes Following the Geomagnetic Storm of May 2024
A new study finds that unique ionospheric changes occurred in the upper atmosphere in response to the May 2024 geomagnetic superstorm. Huang et al.
Observing Magma-Induced Seismic Velocity Changes with Fiber-Optics
A novel high-resolution method for tracking volcanic activity utilizes fiber-optic sensing to detect magma intrusion by measuring seismic velocity changes. Bird et al.
The Mystery of Baselevel Controls in the Incision History of the Central Colorado Plateau
A model of incision of the Colorado River, which determines geomorphic change over a wide landscape, sheds new light on the interplay of canyon incision and plateau uplift. Tanski et al.
Prediction of Equatorial Plasma Bubbles for Navigation and Communication
The authors demonstrate a new technique to predict the formation of equatorial plasma bubbles, a crucial space weather phenomenon affecting satellite-based communication and navigation systems. Patra et al.
Characterizing the Space Between Clouds and Clear Sky
The area near clouds is often classified as ‘clear sky’, but a new study demonstrates the potential biases of misclassifying these transition zones and their significance for Earth’s energy budget. Eytan et al.
EDITORS’ PICKS FROM OTHER JOURNALS
Western Wildfires
In the western U.S., wildfires pose an increasing threat – one exacerbated by climatic factors. Liu et al. (2024) show that the West Pacific climactic oscillation helps explain yearly variability in autumn fire weather; this understanding could improve seasonal wildfire predictions. —Benjamin Sulman, Earth’s Future
El Niño and Record Heat
The temporary warming events in the Pacific, called El Niño, can interact with global warming to produce extreme global heat events like that seen in 2023, report three new studies by Huang et al. (2024), Jiang et al. (2025), and Raghuraman et al. (2024). —Kristopher Karnauskas, Geophysical Research Letters
Glacial Erosion, Interrupted
Glaciers, highly sensitive to climate change, also cause much erosion in high-altitude landscapes; research from Fedotova and Magnani et al. (2024) now shows that accounting for intermittency in glacial erosion is crucial to understanding landscape evolution over Earth’s history. —Marisa Repasch, JGR: Earth Surface
Featured AGU Special Collection
Ecological Forecasting in the Earth System
This joint special collection between the Ecological Society of America (ESA) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) focuses on the emerging field of ecological forecasting, which involves predicting the future states of ecosystems. Ecological forecasting is crucial for proactive environmental management and policy-making. By anticipating changes in ecosystems, stakeholders can implement strategies to mitigate adverse effects, enhance resilience, and promote sustainability. The special collection brings together cutting-edge research that develops, tests, and applies models to forecast ecological dynamics across systems and scales and welcomes contributions that use novel methodologies, interdisciplinary approaches, real-time data integration, and multi-forecast synthesis.
Satellite-Aided Disaster Response
Satellite data play a crucial role in disaster assessment and response. Meeting expanding demand requires not only accelerated data processing but increased collaboration with responders. Rolla et al.