Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Three times accelerated glacier area loss in Svalbard revealed by deep learning
Published: 2025-03-22
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The rapid warming in polar regions highlights the need to monitor climate change impacts such as glacier retreat and related global sea level rise. Glacier area is an essential climate variable but its tracking is complicated by the labour-intensive manual digitisation of satellite imagery. Here we introduce ICEmapper, a deep learning model that maps glacier outlines from Sentinel-1 time series [...]
Non-linear dynamical approaches for multi-sector climate resilience under irreducible uncertainty
Published: 2025-03-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Internal climate variability (ICV) remains a major source of uncertainty in climate projections, complicating impact assessments across critical sectors. Given that ICV emerges from the nonlinear interactions of the climate system, we argue that nonlinear dynamical (NLD) approaches can improve its characterization, providing physically interpretable insights that strengthen adaptation strategies [...]
Weakening of AMOC linked to past Greenland Ice Sheet retreat
Published: 2025-03-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is predicted to occur under multiple scenarios of future warming. However, the effect of meltwater from a decaying Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) on AMOC is uncertain. Using a basin-wide network of North Atlantic sediment cores, we show that the largescale melting of the GrIS during a previous interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage 11c [...]
Unprecedented Social-Ecological Impacts of the 2023 Extreme Drought in the Central Amazon
Published: 2025-03-21
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
While the 2023 record-breaking drought led to widespread social-ecological impacts across Amazonia, local impacts of such extreme events are rarely described in detail. Here we leverage a large interdisciplinary data collection related to social and ecological impacts in the Central Amazon. Compound hazards (reduced river water levels, lack of rainfall, high water/air temperatures, river erosion [...]
Holocene rapid (decades) multi-metre marine transgressions by climatically driven Antarctic ice-collapse events. Another event imminent?
Published: 2025-03-20
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The controversial 1961 'Fairbridge Curve' of Holocene global sea-level (SL), showing metre-scale (to ~5m) oscillations based on carbon-dated geological index points (SL 'benchmarks''), is vindicated by syntheses (companion-articles by present author) of the literature on: (1) Holocene sea level, exposing flawed assumptions and methods in constructing non-oscillating SL curves; and (2) English [...]
Holocene oscillatory sea level: literature review and implications for imminent anthropogenic multi-metre transgression
Published: 2025-03-20
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The famous 1961 'Fairbridge Curve' of Holocene sea level (SL) shows metre-scale (up to ~5m) oscillations, based on a worldwide compilation of carbon-dated geological data-points. Dozens of later authors found further evidence for such fluctuations; while dozens of others, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), deny oscillations >50cm. The debate is settled here by (1) [...]
Geological review of English coastal archaeological evidence portending multi-metre sea-level rise by 2100
Published: 2025-03-20
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
English archaeological literature, its sea-level significance hitherto underappreciated, is reviewed here from a geological (sedimentological) perspective. Five Roman-built (~300AD) waterside forts and a seaside palace (~100AD), all meticulously excavated by archaeologists, tightly dated (tree-rings, coins, pottery), and published in great detail, yield evidence proving a ~4-metre (m) sea-level [...]
Some mechanical and thermal manifestations of the 1908 Tunguska event near its epicenter
Published: 2025-03-19
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper is a continuation of a series of works, devoted to various aspects of the 1908 Tunguska event. It is devoted to some manifestations near the epicenter of the event. Many of the manifestations were established back in the 1960s. Recently a couple of works have appeared that reveal previously undetected phenomena, namely, traces of exposure to high temperatures and high pressure. A [...]
The New Method of Estimation Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change
Published: 2025-03-19
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global climate change is one of the major concerns of modern society. To estimate this change, the global mean temperature is often used. Measuring and calculating the Earth’s average temperature is a complex, multi-step process that combines data from various sources and employs statistical techniques. Today, datasets containing spatial-temporal data on Earth’s temperature are readily [...]
Physically consistent sectoral pathways for phasing out fossil fuels
Published: 2025-03-18
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The transition away from fossil fuels relies on electricity-producing renewable energy sources. To understand how much electricity is needed to substitute fossil fuels, sectors of the economy being electrified must be analysed discretely, as their suitability for electrification varies significantly. Constructing, operating, and maintaining these renewable power plants requires substantial [...]
Large reductions in United States heat extremes found in overshoot simulations with SPEAR
Published: 2025-03-18
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Increases in the intensity and frequency of heatwaves are already evident in the observational record, and these increases are expected to be further amplified in future climate projections with greater radiative forcing. However, it is unclear how temperature extremes will respond regionally to emissions reductions and declines of greenhouse gases later in the 21st century, such as through the [...]
An Enhanced Deep-Learning Catalog of the Mw 8.8 Maule Aftershock Sequence
Published: 2025-03-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We re-examine the aftershock sequence of the Mw 8.8 Maule earthquake in south-central Chile using deep learning on 10 months of continuous seismic data from 156 temporary stations along the rupture zone (March 2010–March 2011). By integrating back-projection and matched filtering with PhaseNet (a deep-learning phase picker), we initially identify 99,137 earthquakes. We then relocate these events [...]
Interactive annular mode links jet stream-ocean coupling to decadal Northern Hemispheric warmth
Published: 2025-03-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The atmospheric jet stream governs the distribution and intensity of midlatitude weather systems and climate variability. In the Northern Hemisphere, meridional migrations of the jet stream are directly linked to the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events. While previous studies have established that jet stream fluctuations are modulated by spatio-temporal variations in diabatic [...]
Summertime sediment storage on the Alaskan Beaufort Shelf and implications for ice-sediment rafting and shelf erosion
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Arctic coastlines are known to be rapidly eroding, but the fate of this material in the coastal ocean (and the sedimentary dynamics of Arctic continental shelves in general) is less well-constrained. This study used summertime mooring data from the Alaskan Beaufort Shelf to study sediment-transport patterns which are dominated by waves and wind-driven currents. Easterly wind events account for [...]
Thermogenic Methane Production in Antarctic Subglacial Hydrocarbon Seeps
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Methane forms beneath ice sheets through microbial methanogenesis and thermogenic breakdown of organic matter, creating a potentially large greenhouse gas reservoir prone to release during glacial retreat. Subglacial thermogenic methanogenesis can increase gas buildup and create oases for life, but this process has not yet been observed in Antarctica, contributing to uncertainty in the spatial [...]