Volume 7 Issue 11, November 2014

Wealth in a country typically protects against earthquake damage. The same cannot always be said for wealth of individuals.

Journals and funders increasingly require public archiving of the data that support publications. We argue that this mandate is necessary, but not sufficient: more incentives for data sharing are needed.

Open source software is often seen as a path to reproducibility in computational science. In practice there are many obstacles, even when the code is freely available, but open source policies should at least lead to better quality code.

Surface salinity in the Nordic Seas dropped between 1965 and 1995, but the source of fresh water to this region is contentious. Observations and simulations suggest that the low-salinity water was derived from the North Atlantic Ocean.

Some modern microorganisms derive energy from the oxidation and reduction of arsenic. The association of arsenic with organic cellular remains in 2.7-billion-year-old stromatolites hints at arsenic-based metabolisms at the dawn of life.

The majority of basaltic volcanism on the Moon occurred more than 3 billion years ago. Small mounded formations on the lunar nearside may be products of basaltic eruptions less than 100 million years ago, suggesting a long decline of magmatic activity.

Global CO₂ emissions are usually assessed from uncertain bottom-up estimates. A satellite-based top-down estimate suggests that emissions of NO_x in East Asia have been reduced relative to those of CO₂ since 2003, probably due to cleaner technology.

Solar dimming from aerosols has the potential to reduce surface evaporation. A detection analysis suggests that through this effect, river flow increased by up to 25% in the most heavily polluted regions of Europe around 1980.

The salinity of the Nordic Seas dropped between 1965 and 1990. Observations and a model hindcast suggest the source of this freshwater anomaly was water from the Atlantic inflow, instead of the relatively fresh Arctic Ocean as previously suspected.

During the last deglaciation, Northern Hemisphere ice sheets discharged ice and meltwater. Seafloor scours and numerical modelling suggest that freshwater and icebergs from the Laurentide ice sheet reached the subtropical North Atlantic.

Today, arsenic metabolism occurs in some anoxic aquatic systems. Geochemical analyses of 2.7-billion-year-old stromatolites show evidence of microbial arsenic cycling in a saline, shallow marine system.

Compared with the other terrestrial planets, Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen-rich. Thermodynamic calculations suggest that nitrogen is readily degassed from oxidized mantle beneath Earth's subduction zones.

Compositional variations in the mantle can generate anomalous magmatism, calling into question the need for hot, upwelling mantle plumes. Numerical simulations, however, point to a plume source for the North Atlantic large igneous province.

At mid-ocean ridges, upper oceanic crust forms from a central magma reservoir, but it is unclear how the lower crust forms. Seismic data from the East Pacific Rise identify a series of smaller magma lenses that help form the lower crust.

Mantle convection helps create continental plateaux. Seismic imaging of the mantle beneath the Canadian Cordillera—an ancient plateau—suggests the plateau formed when upwelling mantle caused a block of lithosphere to detach.

Glaciers in the Karakoram mountains have been stable in mass, whereas in nearby regions, mass loss has prevailed. Climate model simulations reveal a unique seasonal cycle in Karakoram snowfall that contributes to this pattern.

The volume of the East Antarctic ice sheet is influenced by changes in the Earth’s orbit. Ice-rafted debris accumulation between 4.3 and 2.2 million years ago suggests precession affected the extent of the marine margins of the ice sheet.

Transparency and reproducibility are key ingredients of good science, and require that data and methods, including computer code, be made available. In this collection of opinion pieces, we highlight some of the chances and challenges in opening code and data to the scrutiny of the scientific community and the world at large.