A 1000-year archive preserved in fossil corals from the Galápagos offers some of the strongest evidence yet that global warming is already making El Niño stronger. DEEPS Professor and IBES Director Kim Cobb commented on this new research, saying “This system is the largest source of climate extremes on our planet,” Cobb says. “And if it is in itself becoming more extreme, that has some very serious implications for society, and it’s information that we should be acting on.”

Using tracking data from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), Mars Odyssey (ODY) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft, a team of researchers including Postdoctoral Research Associate Nick Wagner have found that the interior of Mars’ southern hemisphere is significantly hotter than the northern half. "This temperature variation could reflect regional mantle convection or insulation by the thick southern highlands crust of Mars that has persisted over several billion years."