Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
WRFUP: A Python Package to Enhance Urban Simulations
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Fluid Dynamics, Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
WRFUP is a Python package designed to enhance urban climate modeling in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model by automating the sourcing and ingestion of high-resolution urban morphology data. This package calculates crucial urban canopy parameters—URB_PARAM and FRC_URB2D—enabling precise simulations for advanced urban canopy parameterizations like SLUCM, BEP, and BEP+BEM. This tool [...]
Megadyke propagation down dynamic topography
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Magmatic dykes that align vertically and extend laterally for hundreds to thousands of kilometres are known as megadykes. Observations of solidified swarms of megadykes suggest the dykes propagate away from a common source. We hypothesize that megadyke propagation is driven by dynamic topography above a buoyant mantle plume. We develop a model describing lateral dyke propagation from a [...]
An Ice Core Snapshot of Past Atmospheric Chemistry in Mt. Everest’s 'Death Zone'
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Glaciology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a unique atmospheric chemistry record from the highest ice core ever recovered (8020 m, South Col Glacier (SCG), Mt. Everest), that captures ~400 years of deposition during the latter half of the first millennium BCE. Due to recent glacier thinning, the upper ~2000 years of accumulation have been lost, however, this is the only ice core record ever recovered from the “Death Zone [...]
Newly discovered active faults in the Wairarapa Valley: Implications for multi-fault rupture and kinematics in the southern North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Active fault locations and constraints on the timing and size of earthquakes are important for understanding and mitigating seismic hazard in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, historical and instrumental records are too short to provide these data on most earthquake-generating faults. Light detection and ranging (lidar) data provide us with the ability to locate and describe active faults and [...]
Quantifying the intensity of crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO): some practical considerations and recommended practices
Published: 2025-08-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Crystallographic preferred orientations (CPOs) commonly develop during the crystal-plastic deformation of rocks and minerals and are widely used to infer strain intensity and geometry, reconstruct deformation conditions, and estimate mechanical anisotropy. Numerous methods have been proposed to quantify CPO intensity as a scalar metric, but these metrics can be highly sensitive to their [...]
Best practices for the analyses of CO2 fluids by Raman Spectroscopy
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Raman spectroscopy is a key method for determining CO₂ densities in geological fluids, yet acquisition, calibration, and processing methodologies vary widely between laboratories. This study evaluates how these parameters affect precision and accuracy. We show that spectral non-linearity can cause a single instrument to show variable relationships between CO2 density and spectral parameters as [...]
Precipitation-driven typology of storms in the Alps
Published: 2025-08-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Numerous advances in precipitation science hinge on our ability to accurately categorize storms into physically meaningful classes, particularly to differentiate between convective and non-convective phenomena. Nonetheless, achieving such classifications remains a challenge for the research community. Here, we propose a precipitation-driven typology of storms in the Alps developed through a [...]
Modeling Large Dust Aerosols in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 (CESM2)
Published: 2025-08-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Dust aerosols have a wide size distribution from less than 1.0 nm to over 100 μm and dominate the Earth’s atmospheric aerosol mass. However, most Earth system models inadequately represent dust aerosols larger than 10 µm in diameter, limiting the accuracy of dust cycle and climatic impact simulations. Here, we introduce a new modeling framework that captures the observed full-size distribution of [...]
Can spinodal decomposition occur during decompression-induced vesiculation of magma?
Published: 2025-08-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Volcanic eruptions are driven by decompression-induced vesiculation of supersaturated volatiles in magma. The initial phase has long been described as a process of nucleation and growth. Recently, it was proposed that spinodal decomposition—an energetically spontaneous phase separation that does not require a distinct interface—may occur during decompression. This idea has attracted attention, [...]
Mutual Gravitational Capture as a Mechanism for Planetary Growth: An Alternative Hypothesis
Published: 2025-08-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This study proposes a new hypothesis for the growth of rocky planets through successive events of mutual gravitational capture followed by planetary fusion. The model suggests that collisions resulting from mutual gravitational captures within the Hill sphere occur under initial conditions of zero relative velocity, aligned velocity vectors, and relatively similar mass ratios. Under these [...]
Impact of Equatorial Wind Change on the Meridional Heat Transport in the Atlantic
Published: 2025-08-13
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ocean heat transport in the Atlantic basin is northwards at all latitudes, and is largest between the equator and 42 degN. This heat transport impacts multiple aspects of the Earth's climate, setting tropical precipitation, surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice concentration. In this paper, we attempt to understand the role of the equatorial winds in setting the meridional heat transport in [...]
Enhanced weathering and its potential connection to ocean oxygenation and eukaryotic evolution at 1.57 Ga
Published: 2025-08-12
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Chemical weathering is a critical Earth system process that regulates climate, ocean chemistry and the long-term carbon cycle. During the mid-Proterozoic (~1.8‒0.8 Ga), chemical weathering is generally considered to have been relatively muted, but this perception remains largely untested, limiting our understanding of the drivers of purported oxygenation events and coeval biological evolution. [...]
Virunga Volcanoes Supersite Biennial Report: 2017- 2019
Published: 2025-08-09
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Virunga Volcanoes is the first Supersite established on the African continent in a highly populated Multi-hazards region. This permanent Supersite was established in a critical context as little was known about the Virunga hazards sources and their dynamics, and little done as measures to evaluate, mitigate and reduce their impacts. Similarly, the active volcanoes are poorly studied and [...]
Prioritizing wildfire fuel management in California
Published: 2025-08-07
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The resources available for managing wildfire risk are insufficient and ultimately finite, while the risk of catastrophic fires is enormous and growing. Prioritization of responses is thus critical, but the basis for comparing the costs and societal benefits of alternative investments in wildfire mitigation is inadequate. Here, we assess and compare the costs of landscape-scale fuel treatment in [...]
Climate driven hydrologic nonstationarity patterns across the Contiguous United States
Published: 2025-08-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We calculated metrics of climate change, land use-land cover change, and hydrologic nonstationarity in 671 catchments across the Contiguous United States (CONUS) that are known not to have relatively little urbanization and anthropogenic land cover. Climate change is correlated with hydrologic nonstationarity in these basins. Land use-land cover change has no correlation with hydrologic [...]