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Abstract The global energy budget is pivotal to understanding planetary evolution and climate behaviors. Assessing the energy budget of giant planets, particularly those with large seasonal cycles, however, remains a challenge without long-term observations. Evolution models of Saturn cannot explain its estimated Bond albedo and internal heat flux, mainly because previous estimates were based on limited observations. Here, we analyze the long-term observations recorded by the Cassini spacecraft and find notably higher Bond albedo (0.41 ± 0.02) and internal heat flux (2.84 ± 0.20 Wm⁻²) values than previous estimates. Furthermore, Saturn’s global energy budget is not in a steady state and exhibits significant dynamical imbalances. The global radiant energy deficit at the top of the atmosphere, indicative of the planetary cooling of Saturn, reveals remarkable seasonal fluctuations with a magnitude of 16.0 ± 4.2%. Further analysis of the energy budget of the upper atmosphere including the internal heat suggests seasonal energy imbalances at both global and hemispheric scales, contributing to the development of giant convective storms on Saturn. Similar seasonal variabilities of planetary cooling and energy imbalance exist in other giant planets within and beyond the Solar System, a prospect currently overlooked in existing evolutional and atmospheric models. 

Rates and directions of crustal extension in a continental rift vary in time and space as the rift evolves, and these geologic records are often preserved along fault planes. Some fault-kinematic studies have been undertaken in the central to northern segments of the Rio Grande rift, but similar studies from the southern part of the Rio Grande rift of western Texas, USA, and northern Mexico are fewer. We present new fault-kinematic data from six locations in the southern Rio Grande rift of Trans-Pecos Texas, combined with U-Pb dating of calcite slickenlines, to constrain the directions and time scales of extension. All locations preserve NE-SW−oriented extension, and locations within the Sunken Block graben preserve a more complex kinematic history of multiple extension directions. Four U-Pb ages range from 30.1 ± 3.1 Ma to 13.7 ± 0.9 Ma. Combined with fault-kinematic data and assuming a constant stress regime between 30 Ma and 14 Ma, these data support the interpretation that earliest extension in the southern rift was oriented NE-SW, and extension rotated clockwise to E-W and NW-SE after 13.7 ± 0.9 Ma. Based on available data, this rotation was broadly coincident with rotation in the extension direction in the southern Española basin and in the Basin and Range Province. These differences suggest that extension in the Rio Grande rift responded to the evolving western boundary of the North American plate but included initial underlying driving forces that were supplanted by lateral forces as the transform margin lengthened. Additionally, geochronologic and kinematic data across the Sunken Block graben of the southern Rio Grande rift indicate that the locus of rifting concentrated with time toward the center of this basin; such structural narrowing has previously been demonstrated in the northern segment of the rift. This study provides a much-needed comparison between the southern and northern segments of the rift but highlights the need for more collection of combined kinematic and geochronologic data.