Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Modelling the ecological impacts of tidal energy barrages
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tidal energy has the potential to form a key component of the energy mix of a number of countries, including the UK. Nonetheless, the deployment of tidal energy systems is associated with potential environmental impacts as prime resource sites often coincide with unique ecosystems inhabited by sensitive organisms. Preceding studies have generally focused on the hydrodynamic impact of tidal energy [...]
Feedback between drought and deforestation in the Amazon
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Deforestation and drought are among the greatest environmental pressures on the Amazon rainforest, possibly destabilizing the forest-climate system. Deforestation in the Amazon reduces rainfall regionally, while this deforestation itself has been reported to be facilitated by droughts. Here we quantify the interactions between drought and deforestation spatially across the Amazon during the early [...]
Distributed Acoustic Sensing of Microseismic Sources and Wave Propagation in Glaciated Terrain
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Records of Alpine microseismicity are a powerful tool to study landscape-shaping processes and warn against hazardous mass movements. Unfortunately, seismic sensor coverage in Alpine regions is typically insufficient. Here we show that distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) bridges critical observational gaps of seismogenic processes in Alpine terrain. Dynamic strain measurements in a 1 km long fiber [...]
Coastal flooding will disproportionately impact people on river deltas
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Climate change is intensifying tropical cyclones, accelerating sea-level rise, and increasing coastal flooding. Coastal flooding will not affect all environments equally, and river deltas are especially vulnerable because of their low elevations, densely populated cities, and river channels that propagate coastal floods inland. Yet, we do not know how many people live on deltas and their exposure [...]
A web application for hydrogeomorphic flood hazard mapping
Published: 2020-01-08
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A detailed delineation of flood-prone areas over large regions represents a challenge that cannot be easily solved with today’s resources. The main limitations lie in algorithms and hardware, but also costs, scarcity and sparsity of data and our incomplete knowledge of how inundation events occur in different river floodplains. We showcase the implementation of a data-driven web application for [...]
The mixology of precursory strain partitioning approaching brittle failure in rocks
Published: 2020-01-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
We examine the strain accumulation and localization process throughout twelve triaxial compression experiments on six rock types deformed in an X-ray transparent apparatus. In each experiment, we acquire 50-100 tomograms of rock samples at differential stress steps during loading, revealing the evolving 3D distribution of X-ray absorption contrasts, indicative of density. Using digital volume [...]
Paleotsunami record of the past 4300 years in the complex coastal lake system of Lake Cucao, Chiloé Island, south central Chile
Published: 2020-01-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
In CE 1960, Lake Cucao on Chiloé Island in south central Chile was inundated by the tsunami of the Great Chilean Earthquake (Mw 9.5). The area of what is now the lake basin has been submerged since the end of the rapid postglacial sea-level rise and has recorded tsunami inundations in its sediment record since then. This study reconstructs the tsunami history of Lake Cucao. Reflection-seismic [...]
Ge and Si isotope behavior during intense tropical weathering and ecosystem cycling
Published: 2020-01-03
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Chemical weathering of volcanic rocks in warm and humid climates contributes disproportionately to global solute fluxes. Geochemical signatures of solutes and solids formed during this process can help quantify and reconstruct volcanic weathering intensity in the past. Here, we measured silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge) isotope ratios of the soils, clays, and fluids from a tropical lowland [...]
The Origin of Continental Carbonates in Andean Salars: A Multi-Tracer Geochemical Approach in Laguna Pastos Grandes (Bolivia)
Published: 2020-01-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In continental volcanic settings, abundant carbonate precipitation can occur with atypical facies compared to marine settings. The (bio-)chemical processes responsible for their development and early diagenesis are typically complex and not fully understood. In the Bolivian Altiplano, Laguna Pastos Grandes hosts a 40-km2 carbonate platform with a great diversity of facies and provides an ideal [...]
Improved Accuracy of Watershed-Scale General Circulation Model Runoff Using Deep Neural Networks
Published: 2020-01-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Projecting impacts of climate change on water resources is a vital research task, and general circulation models (GCMs) are important tools for this work. However, the spatial resolution of downscaled GCMs makes them difficult to apply to non-grid conforming scales relevant to water resources management: individual watersheds. Machine learning techniques like deep neural networks (DNNs) may [...]
Landscape variables in the Indian (Peninsular) catchments: insights into hydro-geomorphic evolution
Published: 2020-01-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The river systems in peninsular India are remained unexplored in terms of hydro-geomorphic evolution, though a few works are carried out in order to understand the tectonic and structural evolution with paleoclimate. Morphometric analysis at catchment scale delivers insights into the dynamics, erosion capacity, probability of flood occurrence, lithological and structural control, and genetic [...]
Artificial and natural radionuclides in cryoconite as tracers of supraglacial dynamics
Published: 2020-01-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Cryoconite, a sediment found on the surface of glaciers, is known for its ability to accumulate radionuclides. New data on cryoconite from the Morteratsch glacier (Switzerland) are presented with the aim to shed light on the mechanisms that control the distribution of radioactivity in cryoconite. Among the many radionuclides detected in our samples, we have identified 108mAg, an artificial [...]
Detection Uncertainty Matters for Understanding Atmospheric Rivers
Published: 2020-01-02
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 3rd ARTMIP Workshop What: Over 30 participants from multiple universities and research insititutions met to discuss new results from the Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project. Where: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, USA When: 16-18 October 2019
Global mean surface temperature and climate sensitivity of the EECO, PETM and latest Paleocene
Published: 2020-01-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate estimates of past global mean surface temperature (GMST) help to contextualise future climate change and are required to estimate the sensitivity of the climate system to CO2 forcing during the geological record. GMST estimates from the latest Paleocene and early Eocene (~57 to 48 million years ago) span a wide range (~9 to 23°C higher than pre-industrial) and prevent an accurate [...]
Using a consistency factor for detection and attribution of anthropogenic impacts on phenological phases in Germany
Published: 2020-01-01
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
An important consequence of climate change is the impact on the seasonal cycle of vegetation flora and fauna. Although it is generally understood that anthropogenic mechanisms play a major role in the warming trend of the climate and that the timing of such phases, especially spring timing events, depends largely on the temperature, the link has yet to be quantitatively shown for different kind [...]