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The North Atlantic Oscillation has shown high variability over the past few decades. A two-hundred-year-long temperature reconstruction from a Bermuda coral suggests a link to recent climate warming.
The Earth's known rock reservoirs contain more radiogenic lead than expected on average. Mantle-derived rocks with highly unradiogenic lead — as discovered in the Horoman massif — may bear witness to a previously unsampled, complementary reservoir.
Two-thirds of terrestrial carbon is stored as organic matter in soils, but its response to warming has yet to be resolved. A soil warming experiment in a Canadian forest has revealed that the leaf-derived compound cutin is resistant to decomposition under elevated temperatures.
The influence of climate on mountain building has long been debated. A reconstruction for the past 25 million years suggests coincidence of Himalayan erosion and monsoon intensification, hinting at a causal relationship.
The Snowball Earth concept envisages a fully frozen Earth for millions of years several times during the Neoproterzoic Era between 1,000 and 542 million years ago. However, the sedimentary evidence suggests that despite the severity of glaciation, some oceans must have remained ice-free.
Glaciologists have speculated that subglacial floods might lead to increased ice flow rates, altering Antarctica's mass balance and contribution to sea-level rise. Now, observations from Byrd Glacier in East Antarctica firmly link a subglacial flood to a 10% speed up of the glacier.
The interactions between climate and tectonics in active mountain ranges are complex and important. Field and geophysical data from the St Elias Range of Alaska show that glacial erosion can influence the dynamics of the lithosphere in such settings.
Two chains of seamounts on the Pacific plate subduct beneath central Japan. In the process, a fragment of the Pacific slab has become wedged in the subduction zone and may be the source of recurring deep-thrust earthquakes beneath Tokyo.
Riverine transport of terrestrial organic carbon to the oceans exerts an important long-term control on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Tropical cyclones participate in this process by delivering recently fixed carbon to the sea.
Natural climate variability and limited observational records have made identifying human-influenced climate change at the poles difficult. But a human signature is now emerging in rising Arctic and Antarctic temperatures.
The quest to determine climate sensitivity has been going on for decades, with disturbingly little progress in narrowing the large uncertainty range. But fascinating new insights have been gained that will provide useful information for policy makers, even though the upper limit of climate sensitivity will probably remain uncertain for the near future.
Saharan humidity has varied dramatically throughout the Pleistocene era. A new deep-sea sediment record reveals large and rapid hydrological shifts that are linked to the competing influences of low- and high-latitude climate processes.
The electronic configuration of iron impurities in lower-mantle minerals influences their physical properties, but it is not well constrained. New studies suggest that ferrous iron in silicate phases exists mainly in an intermediate spin state.
Past variability in Sahel rainfall is closely linked to global sea surface temperature distributions in observations and models alike. Climate simulations for the 21st century suggest that additional influences may become important in the future.
