This special issue investigates the fascinating interactions between the geosphere and biosphere that are active near the Earth’s surface and within the critical zone. The special issue focuses on modelling and observational studies conducted along the extreme climate and ecological gradient of the Chilean Coastal Cordillera. We welcome submissions that address the physical or chemical processes whereby micro-organisms, animals, and plants influence the shape and development of the Earth’s surface over timescales ranging from the present day to the distant geologic past. As this topic is highly interdisciplinary in scope, we encourage submissions from diverse disciplines including geology, geography, geochemistry, surface geophysics, ecology, microbiology, soil sciences, hydrogeology, geomorphology, and climatology. Integrative studies that bridge between disciplines are particularly welcome. Two types of manuscript submissions are possible. These include either original and/or new scientific full-length research articles presenting new data and interpretations or review and synthesis papers that are invited by the editors and integrate data from different studies and disciplines to address state-of-the-science questions related to Earth surface shaping by biota.

Studies of ice extent, volume, and dynamics during former glaciations are important for understanding past climates and evolution of the Earth's surface, and they also provide analogies for present-day and future ice sheets and their subglacial environments. The special issue (SI) "Icy landscapes of the past" brings together contributions from four Copernicus journals (Climate of the Past, The Cryosphere, Earth Surface Dynamics, and Earth System Science Data), reflecting the interdisciplinarity across scientific communities working with former glaciations from the perspectives of palaeoclimatology, glacial geomorphology, Quaternary geology, and numerical modelling, among others. It provides a platform from which field-based reconstructions and model simulations can be compared and contrasted, teasing out complex couplings between the changing cryosphere-induced topographic, freshwater, and sea level forcings and climate states of both warmer and colder epochs of the past. Through this SI, we aim to piece together the growing knowledge about regional responses of different geographic regions to past climate changes to obtain a global picture, thereby fostering emerging collaborations between previously disconnected geoscientific disciplines. We welcome contributions that shed light on ancient and more recent glaciations on Earth and their interaction with other components of the Earth system.

The glacial–interglacial cyclicity of the climate system varied in the past, most notably during the transition from a 40 ka to a 100 ka world in the mid-Pleistocene. Gases trapped in Antarctic ice are the most direct access available to investigate the composition of the paleo-atmosphere of that age and processes related to climate variability. The International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) Oldest Ice endeavour aims at obtaining an undisturbed ice-core record older than 1 Ma. In addition to ice cores, time slices of paleo-records, available, for example, in Antarctic blue-ice fields, provide further valuable information, which complements continuous time series based on ice cores. This special issue will assemble contributions dedicated to the preparatory phase of this global effort to obtain ice samples and time series older than 700 000 years. This includes a consideration of glaciogical and geophysical settings which allow the presence of old ice, results from pre-site surveys and modelling studies, aspects of ice-core and other sampling techniques and analyses, and requirements for drilling and core handling.

Studies of ice extent, volume, and dynamics during former glaciations are important for understanding past climates and evolution of the Earth's surface, and they also provide analogies for present-day and future ice sheets and their subglacial environments. The special issue (SI) "Icy landscapes of the past" brings together contributions from four Copernicus journals (Climate of the Past, The Cryosphere, Earth Surface Dynamics, and Earth System Science Data), reflecting the interdisciplinarity across scientific communities working with former glaciations from the perspectives of palaeoclimatology, glacial geomorphology, Quaternary geology, and numerical modelling, among others. It provides a platform from which field-based reconstructions and model simulations can be compared and contrasted, teasing out complex couplings between the changing cryosphere-induced topographic, freshwater, and sea level forcings and climate states of both warmer and colder epochs of the past. Through this SI, we aim to piece together the growing knowledge about regional responses of different geographic regions to past climate changes to obtain a global picture, thereby fostering emerging collaborations between previously disconnected geoscientific disciplines. We welcome contributions that shed light on ancient and more recent glaciations on Earth and their interaction with other components of the Earth system.

This special issue investigates the fascinating interactions between the geosphere and biosphere that are active near the Earth’s surface and within the critical zone. The special issue focuses on modelling and observational studies conducted along the extreme climate and ecological gradient of the Chilean Coastal Cordillera. We welcome submissions that address the physical or chemical processes whereby micro-organisms, animals, and plants influence the shape and development of the Earth’s surface over timescales ranging from the present day to the distant geologic past. As this topic is highly interdisciplinary in scope, we encourage submissions from diverse disciplines including geology, geography, geochemistry, surface geophysics, ecology, microbiology, soil sciences, hydrogeology, geomorphology, and climatology. Integrative studies that bridge between disciplines are particularly welcome. Two types of manuscript submissions are possible. These include either original and/or new scientific full-length research articles presenting new data and interpretations or review and synthesis papers that are invited by the editors and integrate data from different studies and disciplines to address state-of-the-science questions related to Earth surface shaping by biota.

The glacial–interglacial cyclicity of the climate system varied in the past, most notably during the transition from a 40 ka to a 100 ka world in the mid-Pleistocene. Gases trapped in Antarctic ice are the most direct access available to investigate the composition of the paleo-atmosphere of that age and processes related to climate variability. The International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) Oldest Ice endeavour aims at obtaining an undisturbed ice-core record older than 1 Ma. In addition to ice cores, time slices of paleo-records, available, for example, in Antarctic blue-ice fields, provide further valuable information, which complements continuous time series based on ice cores. This special issue will assemble contributions dedicated to the preparatory phase of this global effort to obtain ice samples and time series older than 700 000 years. This includes a consideration of glaciogical and geophysical settings which allow the presence of old ice, results from pre-site surveys and modelling studies, aspects of ice-core and other sampling techniques and analyses, and requirements for drilling and core handling.