Volume 11 Issue 11, November 2018

The Laurentide Ice Sheet sapped the strength of the North American monsoon during the last ice age, but the ice sheet’s grip on the monsoon weakened as it retreated northwards.

While anthropogenic influence on global climate is clear, human impact on the Southern Ocean has been difficult to pin down. A new detection and attribution study achieves just that.

Understanding the thermodynamics of air-mass transformations that occur in the atmosphere at the boundary between the Arctic and mid-latitudes is key to improving weather and climate predictions, according to a literature synthesis

Groundwater-derived CO₂ inputs and emissions along streams are highly variable in both space and time, according to measurements of dissolved CO₂ from two headwater catchments.

The dwarf planet Ceres may have reoriented in the past due to a heterogeneously dense crust, a scenario consistent with gravity and topographic data and the distribution of crustal fractures.

Rivers in the Western Siberian Lowland, the world’s largest peatland, play a significant role in the release of terrestrial carbon to the atmosphere, according to in situ measurements of carbon dioxide emissions from rivers.

Carbon release from permafrost thaw would substantially decrease the amount of carbon emissions required to meet climate targets, according to climate simulations.

Recent warming and freshening of the Southern Ocean can be attributed to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, with stratospheric ozone depletion also playing a role, according to a synthesis of observations and climate model simulations.

Mesoscale ocean features can alter the magnitude of turbulent mixing caused by wind-driven internal waves, an analysis of Argo float and model data suggests.

The intensity of the North American summer monsoon was modified by changes in the extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum and subsequent deglaciation, according to isotope records and numerical simulations.

On timescales of centuries and longer, aerosol concentrations in Antarctic ice are controlled by changes in the nature of mid- and high-latitude precipitation, according to analyses of palaeoclimate data.

A sea-level record from Mallorca shows no evidence of large, millennial-scale oscillations during the last interglacial.

Crustal structures are as important as deep mantle melting in controlling magma ascent and the composition and distribution of erupted material, according to 3D resistivity modelling, geophysical data and the distribution of Quaternary volcanism.

Earthquakes that jump from fault to fault in subduction zones can be explained by locking on the plate interface, according to GPS data from New Zealand where the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake produced a complex array of crustal ruptures.

Slab stagnation in the transition zone is explained by a thin, weak layer and is transient on timescales of tens of millions of years, according to a global mantle convection model that includes phase changes and plate motion history.