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Most climate models consider only short-term processes such as cloud and sea-ice formation when assessing Earth's sensitivity to greenhouse-gas forcing. Mounting evidence indicates that the response could be stronger if boundary conditions change drastically.
Processes and triggers of deformation in big, slow-moving landslides are often unclear. The Slumgullion slide seems to stick and slip in tune with atmospheric tides.
In a warming climate, large lakes experience increasing water temperatures and ice loss. Observations from Lake Superior show that regional temperature rise has led to an increase in wind speeds over the lake.
Volcanic rocks on the sea floor are home to diverse and abundant microbial communities. Microscopic and spectroscopic analyses suggest that iron and manganese derived from hydrothermal venting support microbial colonization of the ocean crust.
Faults that develop in subducting slabs act as conduits for sea water. Numerical modelling indicates that pressure gradients resulting from the bending of slabs may then drive the water deep into their interior.
Sea ice is an integral component of the climate system, but a difficult one to reconstruct. Biochemical tracers preserved in marine sediments now reveal the waxing and waning of sea ice since the Last Glacial Maximum in an Arctic Ocean gateway.
The stratospheric ozone layer has undergone severe depletion as a result of anthropogenic halocarbons. Although the Montreal Protocol has provided relief, anthropogenic emissions of another substance, nitrous oxide, are set to dominate ozone destruction.
The use of more realistic parameters in numerical geodynamo simulations tends to generate less Earth-like magnetic fields. This paradox could be resolved by considering uniform heat flux instead of uniform temperature at the core's surface.
Mountain landscapes are shaped by tectonics and climate. A series of laboratory experiments has documented a mechanism by which mountain river networks split as the geometry of a mountain evolves in response to an orographic precipitation gradient.
The El Niño/Southern Oscillation phenomenon is the most prominent source of climate variability. Emerging evidence suggests that its signature is not limited to the lower layers of the atmosphere.
Palaeomagnetists' basic assumption that Earth's magnetic field is a GAD, that is, a geocentric axial dipole, has been challenged by anomalous magnetic data from ancient Canadian basalts. At a closer look, fast continental drift could explain this anomaly.
During an earthquake, friction is a key control on the initiation, propagation and termination of fault motion. Laboratory experiments that use variable slip rates suggest that friction evolves in a more complex fashion than generally assumed.
Forest fires convert a small portion of burning vegetation into charred solid residues such as charcoal. A survey of Scandinavian forest soils reveals that charcoal has a highly patchy distribution, and a shorter-than-expected lifetime.
Conflicting proxies for the size of early Antarctic ice sheets have been puzzling. A reconstruction of West Antarctica's past elevation suggests that the disagreement stems from an underestimation of Antarctica's surface area above sea level.
As the Earth warms, the overturning circulation of the upper atmosphere is projected to speed up. Model simulations suggest that this will increase the flux of ozone from the stratosphere to the troposphere, and alter surface levels of ultraviolet radiation.
