Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Algal lipid distributions and hydrogen isotope ratios reflect phytoplankton community dynamics
Published: 2025-01-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Reconstructions of past changes in algal community composition provide important context for future alterations in biogeochemical cycling. However, many existing phytoplankton proxies are indicative of individual algal groups and are not fully representative of the whole community. Here, we evaluated hydrogen isotope ratios of algal lipids (δ2HLipid) as a potential proxy for phytoplankton [...]
Untangling microfibres: Pervasive plastic pollution in submarine canyons
Published: 2025-01-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Submarine canyons are important conduits for microplastic transport to the deep sea via turbidity currents. However, other near-bed oceanographic flows and sub-seafloor processes may play an important role in the transport and burial of microplastics. We use sediment push-cores for microplastic and sediment grain-size analysis from two transects across the Whittard Canyon, UK, to show that [...]
Influence and Prediction of Planetary Orbital Changes on Earth's Atmospheric Water Vapor Variations
Published: 2025-01-17
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A few people have gradually realized that the superposition effect of different planets in the solar system on Earth under high-speed motion and dynamic equilibrium can sometimes trigger extreme natural disasters. Due to the relatively regular changes in the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, this study considers these three planets as independent systems. The orbits of other planets [...]
Updated high-resolution climate projections for Ireland
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Climate change poses a significant risk to Ireland’s economy, society and environment, and therefore it is imperative that planners and policymakers are adequately informed about future climate change so that appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures can be implemented. The main objective of this project was to evaluate the effects of climate change on the future climate of Ireland using [...]
Shallow fault zone structure affects rupture dynamics and ground motions of the 2019 Ridgecrest sequence to regional distances
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Seismic faults are surrounded by damaged rocks with reduced rigidity and enhanced attenuation. These damaged fault zone structures can amplify seismic waves and affect earthquake dynamics, yet they are typically omitted in physics-based regional ground motion simulations. We report on the significant effects of a shallow, flower-shaped fault zone in foreshock-mainshock 3D dynamic rupture models [...]
On the Definition of an Independent Stochastic Model for InSAR Time Series
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
InSAR enables the estimation of displacements of (objects on) the Earth’s surface. To provide reliable estimates, both an independent stochastic and functional model are re- quired. However, the intrinsic problem of InSAR is that both are unknown. Here we propose an independent definition of the stochastic model, via an approximation scheme for the variance- covariance matrix for [...]
OceanTracker 0.5: Fast Adaptable Lagrangian Particle Tracking in Structured and Unstructured Grids
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Particle tracking is frequently used to compute particle movements within hydrodynamic ocean models; however, modelling millions of particles is computationally challenging. OceanTracker is designed to minimise the time required to obtain results from particle tracking. Firstly, by being computationally fast, it enables users to scale to large numbers of particles, thus obtaining better [...]
Hypereutrophication, Hydrogen Sulfide, and Environmental Injustices: Mechanisms and Knowledge Gaps at the Salton Sea
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, is undergoing significant environmental degradation, which has adverse health effects on nearby rural communities, who are primarily Latinx and Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian. Over the past two decades, the lake’s water levels have steadily dropped. Water conditions in the Sea, characterized by low oxygen and high nutrient levels, favor the [...]
UrbanTALES: A Comprehensive LES Dataset for Urban Canopy Layer Turbulence Analyses and Parameterization Development
Published: 2025-01-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The urban canopy layer (UCL) exhibits complex, heterogeneous flow patterns shaped by urban geometry. Traditionally, research has relied on microscale simulations over limited and often idealized building arrays, leaving a need for more extensive datasets to capture the dynamics across diverse urban neighborhoods. Responding to this gap, we developed an extensive dataset, known hereafter as [...]
Intensifying risk of mass human heat mortality if historical weather patterns recur
Published: 2025-01-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The potential death toll of worst-case extreme heat events is crucial for climate risk analysis and adaptation planning. We estimate this quantity for Europe using machine learning to calculate the intensity of historical heat waves if they occur at present or future global temperatures, combined with empirical exposure-response functions to quantify the resulting mortality. Each event is [...]
Observation-based estimate of Earth's effective radiative forcing
Published: 2025-01-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Human emissions continue to influence Earth's climate. Effective radiative forcing quantifies the effect of such anthropogenic emissions together with natural factors on Earth's energy balance (Soden et al. 2018; Gregory et al. 2020; Forster et al. 2021, 2024). Evaluating the exact rate of effective radiative forcing is challenging, because it can not be directly observed. Therefore, estimating [...]
Dynamic earthquake source inversion with Generative Adversarial Network priors
Published: 2025-01-10
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Dynamic source inversion of earthquakes consists of inferring frictional parameters and initial stress on a fault consistent with recorded seismological and geodetic data and with dynamic earthquake rupture models. In a Bayesian inversion approach, the nonlinear relationship between model parameters and data requires a computationally demanding Monte Carlo (MC) approach. As the computational cost [...]
Divergent Paradigms of Porphyry Cu Deposits in Subduction and Collision Zones
Published: 2025-01-09
Subjects: Geochemistry, Geology, Natural Resource Economics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The prevailing view suggests that the formation of porphyry Cu deposits involves differentiation of water-rich, metal-bearing juvenile magmas, with subduction of oceanic slabs supplying the necessary volatiles. However, the occurrence of significant porphyry Cu deposits in continental collision zones, where such volatile sources are absent, challenges this paradigm. We analyze a global dataset of [...]
Rethinking the Anatomy and Architecture of the Neoproterozoic Gneiss Domes in the Nubian Shield: Are they Extensional Metamorphic Core Complexes?
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Nubian Shield features amphibolite-grade, gneiss-cored domes surrounded by greenschist-grade island arc and ophiolitic assemblages. These structures exhibit anomalous intense ductile deformation and higher metamorphism than the surrounding rock units; yet, their nature, geometry, and origin remain controversial. The present study integrates field data, remote sensing, and detailed structural [...]
Grain size evolution in mantle convection models promotes continuous rather than episodic tectonics
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
A long-persistent caveat of geodynamic models with Earth-like tectonic behavior is the need of an ‘ad hoc’ yield stress lower than any laboratory-inferred rock strength. Grain size reduction due to dynamic recrystallization provides local weak zones in the lithosphere thereby promoting lithospheric breakdown and continuous mobile-lid tectonics. Grain growth should instead (re-)strengthen the [...]