Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Interface Habitats: An Integrated Observing Strategy for Earth’s Most Dynamic and Consequential Aquatic Boundaries
Published: 2026-09-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Climate, Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
One line, no hard line breaks — safe to copy and paste: Interface Habitats – the dynamic boundaries where water meets land, the seafloor, the atmosphere, and ice, and where fronts, eddies, and filaments draw comparably sharp boundaries within the water itself – are among Earth's most productive, diverse, and rapidly changing ecosystems, and the site of most human interaction with aquatic [...]
Transient Events: A Rapid-Response, Multi-Platform Observing Strategy for Detecting and Understanding Abrupt Change in Aquatic Ecosystems
Published: 2026-09-26
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Extremes, not average conditions, increasingly govern the state of aquatic ecosystems and the risks they carry for people. Events far outside normal variability can reshape ecosystem structure and function within hours to weeks, and both the observational record and climate projections indicate such extremes are growing more frequent, more intense, and longer lasting. Whether an extreme becomes a [...]
Leveraging Ocean Data and Models: Building the Data Infrastructure, Workforce, and Modeling Capacity to Synthesize Earth’s Ocean Observations
Published: 2026-09-26
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Geology, Hydrology, Meteorology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
NASA’s aquatic and marine research enterprise within the overarching NASA Biosphere Program is entering an era of unprecedented data abundance. MODIS and the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission already generate ocean color data at rates that strain legacy processing and archiving workflows, and forthcoming missions will add further volume and complexity. These satellite [...]
Carbon and the Elements of Life: Integrated Observing and Modeling of Marine Biological Carbon Cycles
Published: 2026-09-25
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Biology, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The global ocean acts as a massive reservoir for carbon dioxide, establishing ocean biogeochemistry as a primary driver of global carbon distributions [1-3]. This dynamic system is mediated by living organisms that cycle carbon and other elements through the ocean interior and air-sea interface, and is already being altered by warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and shifting nutrient supply [...]
The Influence of Large-Scale Weather Patterns on Potential Wind Energy Fields over Mexico
Published: 2026-09-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Statistics and Probability
The assessment of wind energy resources in large regions presents a substantial challenge for energy system operators due to the intricacies involved in accurately describing all atmospheric circulation patterns and, even more so, modeling their inherent dynamics. This research primarily aimed to identify the prevailing synoptic weather patterns over continental Mexico and its surrounding [...]
Rapid Source Constraints and Nodal-Plane-Robust Static Stress Transfer of the 24 September 2026 Mw 5.3–5.4 Şanlıurfa Earthquake, Southeastern Türkiye
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Risk Analysis
On 24 September 2026, a moderate earthquake occurred in southeastern Türkiye near the Hilvan–Karaköprü sector of Şanlıurfa Province. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported M 5.3 at 37.4736°N, 38.8612°E and 10 km depth, whereas the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Türkiye (AFAD) issued a rapid Mw 5.4 solution at a shallower and approximately 5.9 km displaced hypocenter. We [...]
Deep seismo-volcanic tremors constrain the magma supply from the mantle
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Volcanic eruptions are driven by magma supplied from the mantle, yet deep magmatic flux remains poorly constrained. Here we propose to quantify it based on deep seismic tremors. We adopt a model of tremor generation by rapid growth of gas bubbles in response to magma decompression and establish a physical relationship between the cumulative seismic moment and the volume of the ascending magma. By [...]
A Probabilistic Catastrophe Risk Model for Site-Specific Tropical Cyclone Loss Quantification
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Quantifying the financial risk posed by landfalling tropical cyclones requires statistical methods that extend beyond the limits of a short and non-stationary historical observational record. This paper presents the mathematical formulation of an open, modular probabilistic catastrophe risk model for site-specific tropical cyclone loss estimation, structured around the four components used [...]
Hydrogeology and Water Quality of the Unconsolidated Aquifer System in the Lower Fall Creek Valley, Tompkins County, New York
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Tompkins County and the Town of Dryden, conducted a hydrogeologic investigation of the lower Fall Creek unconsolidated aquifer system in Tompkins County, New York. This study is part of an ongoing effort to characterize major valley-fill aquifers in the region to support sustainable groundwater management. The lower Fall Creek valley, encompassing [...]
Intensifying salinity intrusion in the Barataria Basin, 2010 to 2026: a coastward gradient in the rate of change
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The Barataria Basin, a shallow microtidal estuary in coastal Louisiana, has lost a substantial part of its wetland area and is exposed to increasing salinity intrusion as the Mississippi River remains leveed and relative sea level rises. Salinity conditions in this basin have been described, but whether the rate at which salinity changes varies spatially across the basin has not yet been [...]
Methodological and conceptual shortcomings of MEECC limit its transparency and policy relevance
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Kanitkar, Jayaraman & Lavanyaa (KJL from here on) introduce the Model for Energy Equity and Climate Compatibility (MEECC_V.1), an analytical tool positioned as an alternative integrated assessment framework. MEECC is intended to facilitate the construction of scenarios to operationalize climate-compatibility, equity, and feasibility. The attention to the development-mitigation nexus and [...]
Recent Changes in Lake Chad’s Surface Water Extent: A Remote Sensing Assessment Using Sentinel-2 Land Cover Data (2017-2025)
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Lake Chad is an endorheic freshwater lake located at the junction of four countries; Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon in West-Central Africa. Lake Chad, once one of Africa’s largest freshwater bodies, has experienced significant hydrological fluctuations over the past decades. While long-term historical analyses highlight a severe 90% surface area contraction since the 1960s, short-term [...]
Three-Dimensional Numerical Modeling of Glacier Flow and U-Shaped Valley Evolution in Subtropical Taiwan
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Glacial erosion plays a critical role in shaping alpine topography,yet the coupled effects of ice deformation, basal sliding, andbedrock erosion on millennial-scale valley morphodynamics remainchallenging to quantify. This study presents three-dimensionalsimulations of glacier dynamics and bed evolution in Xue MountainGlacial Cirque No.~2, Taiwan, over an effective glaciation timescaleof 9~ka. [...]
P-T-t-d history of the Greater Himalayan Sequence in the Zanskar Shear Zone, NW India
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
We present a synthesis of pressure-temperature-time-deformation (P-T-t-d) conditions that track the evolution of the Greater Himalaya Sequence (GHS) exhumed along the Zanskar Shear Zone (ZSZ), the western arm of the South Tibetan Detachment and that spans the entirety of the Himalayan range. The dominant mineralogy is Qz + Kfs + Pl + Bt + Grt + Ilm + Sil(Fi) ± Ms ± Ky ± St. P-T paths constructed [...]
Skillful Seasonal Tropical Cyclone Prediction with AI Weather--Climate Models Forced by Dynamically Predicted SSTs
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
AI weather-climate models are far cheaper than dynamical seasonal prediction models and have shown skillful tropical cyclone (TC) prediction under persisted sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies, but their skill under dynamically predicted ocean boundary conditions, benchmarked against an established dynamical seasonal prediction system, is untested. We evaluate eight seasonal hindcast [...]