Fossil fuel consumption, among other sources of pollution, have resulted in increasing atmospheric and oceanic temperatures, leading to ice sheet melt and unprecedented shifts in our environments. New research from an international team of scientists suggests that these recent, rapid warming conditions exist within a larger climatic pattern — one that has been persistently driven by extraterrestrial forcing.

Chijun Sun, an assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at the College of Letters and Science, recently returned to land after a months-long trip aboard the Chikyu, a deep-sea scientific vessel investigating the seafloor following a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami.