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The two small satellites of Mars are thought to have accreted from a debris disk formed in a giant impact. Simulations suggest the moons were shepherded into formation by the dynamical influence of one or more short-lived massive inner moons.
Anomalously bright spots are seen on the dark cratered surface of the dwarf planet Ceres. The Dawn spacecraft's detection of sodium carbonates in bright areas is consistent with aqueous activity in an ice-poor and salty regolith.
At mid-ocean ridges, the directions in which plates spread and the underlying mantle flows were thought to broadly align. A synthesis of results from ridges that spread at a variety of rates reveals that instead there may be a systematic skew.
Conversion of Antarctic circumpolar upwelling waters to less dense water has mainly been attributed to surface heat fluxes. An analysis of water-mass transformation shows that the dominant process is the formation of sea ice near Antarctica and its melt offshore.
A weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has emerged from noise after years of painstaking measurements. Three independent lines of evidence suggest that an anthropogenic influence on this overturning is not yet detectable.
Soil carbon stocks depend on inputs from decomposing vegetation and return to the atmosphere as CO2. Monitoring of carbon stocks in German alpine soils has shown large losses linked to climate change and a possible positive feedback loop.
Ethane emissions can lead to ozone pollution. Measurements at 49 sites show that long-declining atmospheric ethane concentrations started rising in 2010 in the Northern Hemisphere, largely due to greater oil and gas production in the USA.
Frequent storms on the young Sun would have ejected energetic particles and compressed Earth's magnetosphere. Simulations suggest that the particles penetrated the atmosphere and initiated reactions that warmed the planet and fertilized life.
Semivolatile organic compounds from fossil fuels or incomplete combustion are ubiquitous. A suite of circumglobal measurements of their oceanic and atmospheric concentrations reveals large carbon fluxes through the deposition of these compounds.
Liquid water on Mars may be an agent of surface change, but it is unstable under the thin atmosphere. Experiments suggest water percolating though Martian hillslopes ejects sediment as it boils under the low pressure, and modifies the landscape.
Phosphorus is essential for food production, but it is also a key cause of eutrophication. Estimates of phosphorus flux for the past 40–70 years reveal that large river basins can experience phases of phosphorus accumulation and depletion.
Coastlines above subduction zones slowly emerge from the sea despite repeated drowning by great, shallow earthquakes. Analysis of the Chilean coast suggests that moderate-to-large, deeper earthquakes may be responsible for the net uplift.
Rockfall often seems to occur spontaneously without an obvious cause. Monitoring of a granitic cliff reveals that cyclical temperature variations can subtly act to slowly and incrementally damage hard rock until failure is inevitable.
A rapid warming event 55.8 million years ago was caused by extensive carbon emissions. The rate of change of carbon and oxygen isotopes in marine shelf sediments suggests that carbon emission rates were much slower than anthropogenic emissions.
Human activity alters the atmospheric composition, which leads to global warming. Model simulations suggest that reductions in emission of sulfur dioxide from Europe since the 1970s could have unveiled rapid Arctic greenhouse gas warming.
The Antarctic ice sheet is fringed by ice shelves. Remote imagery identifies extensive basal channels in these shelves that grow and deepen on decadal timescales.
The rise and fall of civilizations over the past two millennia was set against a backdrop of climate change. High-resolution climate records evince a link between societal change and a period of cooling in the sixth and seventh centuries.
Large earthquakes cause other quakes near and far. Analyses of quakes in Pakistan and Chile suggest that such triggering can occur almost instantaneously, making triggered events hard to detect, and potentially enhancing the associated hazards.
