Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A Superflare and Geomagnetic Excursion as the Triggers for the Younger Dryas Climatic Event and Terminal Pleistocene Extinctions
Published: 2025-09-11
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) stadial at ~12,850 cal. yr BP remains one of the most abrupt climatic transitions in the geologic record, coinciding with megafaunal extinctions and human cultural shifts. The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) proposes a cosmic event but struggles to explain the absence of a crater, terrestrial isotopic signatures of key proxies, and the hemispheric bias [...]
Moist adiabatic scaling explains mean and fast upper-level jet stream wind response to climate change
Published: 2025-09-10
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The upper-level jet stream exhibits a robust increase in strength and shear under climate change. Previous work also noted a fast-get-faster response and connected it diagnostically to the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. Here we derive a moist adiabatic scaling that explains the upper-level jet stream wind response. Given the daily surface air temperature distribution and assuming a moist adiabatic [...]
Relation of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity with observed and predicted ENSO indices
Published: 2025-09-08
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences global climate variability, including Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. The Niño-3.4 index has long been used to characterize ENSO. However, new ENSO indices have been proposed in recent years. Here, in the context of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity, we compared Niño-3.4 to three modern ENSO indices: the relative Niño-3.4 index, the ENSO [...]
Sill intrusion and compressive regimes: Examples of intrusion-induced compression in host-rocks during sill emplacement in the Faroe Islands
Published: 2025-09-06
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Sills of predominantly mafic compositions are ubiquitous in many onshore and offshore extension-related sedimentary basins worldwide and do in some instances also appear in extension-related volcanic settings such as those in North Atlantic islands like NW Britain, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Both of these settings are typically composed of sub-horizontal layered strata, in which individual [...]
Assessing the Predictive Skill of Global Climate Models for Long and Short Rains in the Greater Horn of Africa
Published: 2025-09-04
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Seasonal forecasts play a crucial role in delivering early warnings to various sectors, particularly the agricultural sector. The Greater Horn of Africa region depends on rainfed agriculture, hence the need for accurate forecasts. This study uses Global Climate Models (GCMs) and satellite precipitation observations to assess the predictability of observed precipitation by deploying traditional [...]
The role of thermal pressurization in driving deep fault slip during the 2021 Mw 8.2 Chignik, Alaska megathrust earthquake
Published: 2025-09-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 2021 Mw 8.2 Chignik earthquake ruptured a weakly coupled portion of the deep slab in the eastern Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone, with no significant shallow slip. The underlying physics driving such large earthquakes nucleating at large depth and their impact on seismic and tsunami hazards remain poorly understood. We perform 3D dynamic rupture simulations that couple thermal [...]
Assessment of Natural Gas Pipeline Construction on Stream Temperature and Turbidity in Southwestern Virginia, 2017—25
Published: 2025-09-03
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The natural gas pipeline network in the United States is extensive and often intersects streams and other sensitive habitats, yet there are limited case studies utilizing a comparative upstream-downstream approach to evaluate potential short- and long-term effects of pipeline stream crossing construction from pre-construction to post-site restoration. In 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey, in [...]
Some new Models of Earth’s Temperature Anomaly across various Epochs Predicting Present Warming with Ice Age Validity Testing and a Data set Bias examination.
Published: 2025-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The need for methods to assess earth’s temperature anomaly are briefly discussed together with shortcomings of existing climate models. The geomagnetic or Pole shift method of climate sensitivity is briefly reviewed. The hypothesis that the previous two warm periods shared a common driver is tested and proven. Granger causality tests have been made and indicate that Pole Shift is the driver of [...]
Using X-ray Fluorescence to Detect Automobile Heavy Metal Pollution in Los Angeles Soils with Copper and Palladium as Indicators
Published: 2025-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This project evaluates the effectiveness of using portable X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) to detect soil composition matrices that show patterns of anthropogenic influence. We explore 26 areas within Los Angeles County, California, that have various amounts of traffic; classifying each locale as Urban or Recreational. The main elements of interest are copper and palladium. These indicators are largely [...]
Using ruptures from an earthquake cycle simulator to test geodetic early warning system performance
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
New Zealand's vulnerability to seismic hazards highlights the need for systems capable of providing earthquake early warning (EEW) or rapid notice of strong shaking. Large offshore earthquakes along the subduction zone east of the North Island could also trigger catastrophic tsunamis, inundating coastal communities in under an hour. While New Zealand operates a robust seismic and geodetic network [...]
Intelligent National Map: A Vision for Distributed and Agentic Geospatial Intelligence
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
An Intelligent National Map (INM) can change how worldwide mapping agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, deliver the geospatial foundation of the Nation, as well as the capacity for the public to engage and use the data. It is envisioned as an innovative system that can coordinate analysis for spatial questions using structured reasoning grounded in semantic relationships, domain rules, [...]
Undrainable pore spaces comprise half of US groundwater storage
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Groundwater is vital to global freshwater access, streamflow generation, and biogeochemical cycling, but not all groundwater can be drained due to adhesive and capillary forces. Quantifying the proportion of groundwater that can be drained—and is, thus, theoretically recoverable—is critical for characterising groundwater’s role in earth system processes. Unfortunately, estimates of theoretically [...]
Testing the accuracy and transferability of remotely sensed biomass models across heterogeneous grasslands
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Grassland aboveground biomass provides key insights into ecological processes such as carbon sequestration, animal movement patterns, and agricultural management practices. Different model types have been developed to estimate grassland biomass from satellite imagery. However, differences in model performance across sites with different management regimes remain largely understudied. In this [...]
Band ratio to band difference for Chl of oceanic waters: broke a self-imposed no-touch zone
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
There are many empirical algorithms developed for the remote sensing of chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl) from ocean color measurements, with the blue-green band-ratio type of algorithms dominating these practices. During the phase of algorithm development, which is data-driven, generally the errors of remote sensing reflectance (Rrs) from satellites are ignored until Hu et al. (2012) developed a [...]
Surface Expression of Low Basal Friction Upstream of Antarctic Grounding Lines
Published: 2025-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ice sheets leave contact with the bed at grounding lines, beyond which floating ice shelves experience no friction at their base. In places where basal friction begins to decrease upstream of the grounding line, ice sheets respond more strongly to climate forcing. However, the spatial extent of zones of low grounding line friction is poorly constrained by observations. Here, we use a steady-state [...]