Volume 14 Issue 3, March 2021

Warm and wet conditions could have episodically punctuated a generally cold early climate on Mars, according to a multidisciplinary modelling approach that potentially solves a five-decade long debate regarding warm conditions on early Mars.

Turbidites record ground motion in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. Recent events are now revealing how turbidites record earthquakes, but turbidites are triggered in many ways, and testing if ancient turbidites are earthquake-triggered remains challenging.

Hydrogen ions move freely within the crystal structure of a hydrous mineral under lower mantle conditions, resulting in high electrical conductivity that may make it possible to map water in the deep mantle.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is currently distinctly weaker than it has been for the last millennium, according to a synthesis of proxy records derived from a range of techniques.

The interior structure and rheology of large terrestrial exoplanets is strongly affected by the phase transition of iron-oxide, according to dynamic compression and X-ray diffraction FeO experiments up to 700 GPa and calculation of the binary MgO–FeO phase diagram.

Mars’s early climate and surface chemistry varied between a generally cold, oxidizing environment and warmer, more reducing conditions, according to a model of atmospheric evolution driven by stochastic, random injection of greenhouse gases.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C will prevent tropical regions from reaching the limit of human adaptability, according to robust dynamical constraints on projected heat stress.

Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere will probably persist for only one billion more years before it sharply deoxygenates to low-level oxygen similar to those of the Archaean, according to a combined biogeochemistry and climate model.

Reduced planetary albedo due to fewer low clouds on early Earth could explain some 40% of the required forcing to offset the faint young Sun, according to global climate model experiments.

Investment in capital formation between 1995 and 2015 has driven a 120% increase in the greenhouse gas emissions from material production, according to a multiregional input–output model of the global economy.

Common Era sea-ice variability in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean was strongly influenced by interacting climate modes, according to climate modelling and an analysis of sea-ice and temperature proxies.

Marine turbidite deposition is confirmed to relate to earthquake ground motions by an analysis of turbidite deposits and simulations of ground motions from the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.

The lower oceanic crust beneath Iceland is flowing and internally deforming, according to constraints on seismic anisotropy in the Icelandic crust from an analysis of seismic surface waves.

Under conditions of Earth’s deep lower mantle, hydrogen ions diffuse freely through the FeOOH lattice framework and electrical conductivity increases rapidly, according to electrical conductivity experiments and first-principles simulations.