Editor's choice 

There have been various recent papers linking internal waves/tides with cold water coral distribution and abundance. This is the first one, to the best of our knowledge, that approaches the question from a global context. The focus on biophysical interaction means that it may be of particular interest to the broad geoscience community.

This analytical study investigates the eddy energy dissipation rate for relative wind stress. The derived dissipation rate draws on our fundamental understanding of relative wind stress damping, vertical eddy structure, and eddy energy. The study suggests a method to parameterise the damping of total eddy energy in coarse resolution global climate models, and may have implications for a wide range of climate processes.

Future climate of the Antarctic is a topic of concern to scientists and to the general public, and has implications for global sea level rise. This paper uses an ocean model driven by high-end atmospheric conditions plausible by late 23rd century to highlight what might happen to the Antarctic ice and its surrounding ocean if our emissions of CO2 continue to rise in an extreme way. The model suggests that the future Antarctic continental shelf would be more like the present day Amundsen Sea – warmer and fresher. This would lead to substantial increases in ice shelf melt rates.

This research predicts the potential future of the Eastern Mediterranean's circulation under the RCP8.5 emission scenario, using a coupled regional climate system model and a global oceanic model. The study predicts a significant decrease in dense water formation, a key process in Mediterranean overturning circulation, by up to 84% in the Adriatic, Aegean, and Levantine seas by the end of the century. This study forecasts a shift in the main source of Eastern Mediterranean Deep Water from the Adriatic Sea to the Aegean Sea. These changes, related to increased vertical stratification that hinders vertical mixing and convection, fill a crucial gap in our understanding of how climate change could reshape the Mediterranean Sea's dynamics.

The authors investigate the main contributors to the seasonal variability in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in the eastern North Atlantic subpolar gyre using a Lagrangian approach. They analyze trajectories from a hindcast model that permits eddies. The insights gained from the study are important and of interest to the broader scientific community, as well as potentially to the public. Specifically, the study finds that the strong seasonality in the strength of the AMOC is explained by the rapid circulation of upper limb waters. Parcels with sufficiently long circulation times within the gyre experience a combination of surface buoyancy loss and interior mixing, which filters out their seasonal thermohaline variability.

Summer 2022 was memorable and record-breaking in much of Europe - for example heatwaves in France. This paper discusses marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean and northeastern Atlantic Ocean and their importance for European climate. It investigates the causes of increased sea surface temperature during summer 2022 for the seas around France through assessing the different atmospheric fluxes determining the upper ocean heat budget. It highlights the need for continuous monitoring of the ocean surface in order to assess the impact of these marine heatwave events.

Increasing Greenland Ice Sheet--melting is anticipated to impact water mass transformation in the subpolar North Atlantic and ultimately the meridional overturning circulation. Greenland meltwater redistribution pathways in and impact on the subpolar North Atlantic and overturning circulation is currently among the most debated topics. The manuscript provides new insights to both physical oceanographic processes and climate modelling. Based on a systematic setup of model configurations the importance of atmospheric feedbacks and mesoscale dynamics for specific regions of the subpolar North Atlantic are emphasized. This reaches beyond aspects of model techniques and also addresses the need for continued and improved observations in critical locations of the subpolar North Atlantic gyre circulation.

Closing the sea level budget (between observed rise and the sum of its causes) has been a challenge, is an ongoing effort and has primarily concerned the global mean. Here, the authors use machine learning to identify sub-areas with similar trends to close the sea level budget on a regional level, with much reduced errors compared with 1-degree grid points.

Internal tides are an important agent of ocean mixing which affects water mass character and circulation. This paper highlights the sensitivity of internal tide generation, propagation and dissipation (related to their mixing impact) to their context (stratification and circulation).

In this paper, a new hypothesis is put forward to explain the remarkable freshening of the Subpolar North Atlantic that peaked in 2016. The hypothesis emphasizes the increased surface circulation in the Labrador Sea region, following a reduction in heat loss to the atmosphere during the period 2000-2013. This new hypothesis, supported by the analysis of a very high resolution ocean model, contrasts with other studies that concluded to an overwhelming role of the reduced Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in the freshening. In the present study, the AMOC decline is shown to account for not more than 27% of the freshening. Overall, this paper points out that surface properties of the Subpolar North Atlantic Ocean, which are important for European climate, cannot be understood in terms of AMOC variability only, but rather depend on the horizontal circulation at the ocean surface and on regional air-sea exchanges.

Marine plastics is a socially relevant topic that usually attracts public interest. It is especially relevant in the Galapagos which wants exceptional protection in view of its unique wildlife. The paper provides a methodology for effective management.

The Antarctic is by far the largest body of water (mostly ice in this case) that is not in the sea and therefore potentially important for changing sea level. The large size of the Getz ice shelf and its as yet uncertain potential for melting by oceanic waters below make this an important study for understanding and predicting impacts of a warmer climate.