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The Last Glacial Maximum hydroclimate over western North America differed from the modern climate. A proxy-model comparison suggests that the glacial storm track was squeezed and steered by atmospheric high-pressure systems.
The relative uncertainty of anthropogenic climate forcing has decreased in the past decade. A statistical model suggests that by 2030 this uncertainty will be halved, as CO2 increasingly dominates over other human-made climate influences.
Copper ore deposits accumulate at relatively shallow depths in the crust, but it is unclear how the metal is transported. Laboratory experiments show that metals may hitch a ride on magma bubbles and float towards shallower depths.
Earth’s core exhibits similar elastic properties to rubber. Experiments show that a high-pressure phase of iron carbide modifies iron’s elastic properties under inner-core conditions, suggesting that carbon is the light element in the core.
Short-lived halogens are produced naturally and anthropogenically, and are not governed by the Montreal Protocol. Like halocarbons, short-lived halogens destroy lower-stratospheric ozone, resulting in a net cooling effect since pre-industrial times.
Atlantic water brings heat to the subsurface Arctic Ocean. Pan-Arctic microstructure measurements of energy dissipation suggest that vertical mixing is substantial over the continental slopes, tidally induced, and insensitive to sea-ice cover.
Faint M dwarf stars are the focus of searches for habitable planets. Numerical models suggest that changes in stellar luminosity lead to planets that are either too dry or too wet to be habitable in M dwarf systems.
The position of the intertropical convergence zone may be influenced by aerosols. A 450-year-long precipitation record from Belize confirms a southward shift associated with increasing anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the Northern Hemisphere.
The speed of seismic waves passing through the Earth’s inner core varies with direction. Analysis of earthquake seismic data suggests that this directional dependence differs between innermost and outer inner core.
The Witwatersrand gold deposit is the largest in the world. Thermodynamic calculations show that such rich accumulations of gold could be linked to abundant volcanism, primitive life and the oxygen-free atmosphere of the Archaean.
Holocene temperature trends in the Arctic are unclear. An isotope record from ice wedges in Siberia suggests that winters have warmed since the mid-Holocene, whereas summer temperatures have cooled.
Carbon dioxide emissions from lakes contribute to the continental carbon balance. Water chemistry analyses of reservoirs in Spain suggest that carbonate weathering causes CO2 supersaturation in lakes above a threshold alkalinity.
Earth’s nitrogen isotopic composition has been linked to an unknown primordial reservoir. Macroscopic analyses of mineral inclusions in meteorites suggest that ices in the Sun’s protoplanetary disk could be the source of Earth’s nitrogen.
The atmospheric circulation controls the regional expression of global climate change. An analysis of aquaplanet climate simulations suggests that the radiative effects of clouds and water vapour are key to the circulation response to global warming.
The Tibetan Plateau is extending. Numerical simulations suggest that regional-scale extension is caused by gravitational collapse of the plateau, whereas rapid extension in the south is caused by underthrusting of the Indian slab.
Earth’s initial oxygenation took several hundred million years. Experiments and geochemical modelling suggest that early photosynthetic marine microbes may have been repeatedly stressed by Fe(II) delivered by submarine volcanism.