Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Cooling after net zero
Published: 2025-05-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Climate policy aims to limit global warming by achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. Climate models indicate that achieving net-zero emissions yields a nearly constant global temperature over the following decades. However, whether temperatures remain stable in the centuries after net-zero emissions is uncertain, as models produce conflicting results. Here, we explain how this disagreement [...]
Reliability of Contrast-Based Automated Fracture Detection from Decimeter Resolution Aerial Imagery
Published: 2025-04-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Geotechnical Engineering, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Aerial imagery that captures outcrop exposures of rocks enables the characterization of structural discontinuities such as faults and fractures across large and difficult-to-access areas. These datasets provide an opportunity to analyze the characteristics of fault and fracture networks as analogues for the subsurface. The application of automated interpretation methods to imagery has the [...]
Natural forests of the world - a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring
Published: 2025-04-29
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
Informed decisions to reduce deforestation, protect biodiversity, and curb carbon emissions require not just knowing where forests are, but understanding their composition. Identifying natural forests, which serve as critical biodiversity hotspots and major carbon sinks, is particularly valuable. We developed a novel global natural forest map for 2020 at 10 m resolution. This map can support [...]
Earth hit twice - The hypothesis of planetary rearrangement of the lithosphere by impact and interference waves
Published: 2025-04-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Sciences
This study presents the impact-antipodal-interference hypothesis as a new model of planetary-scale crustal deformation. By analysing the distribution and properties of three megastructures - the Mariana Trench, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the Amazon Basin - it is demonstrated that their formation may be linked to large-scale cosmic impacts and the seismic wave interference occurring within [...]
Transforming Total Field Anomaly into Anomalous Magnetic Field: Using Dual-Layer Gradient-Boosted Equivalent Sources
Published: 2025-04-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Potential field data often require interpolation onto a regular grid at constant height before further analysis. A widely used approach for this is the equivalent sources technique, which has been adapted over time to improve its computational efficiency and accuracy of the predictions. However, many of these approaches still face challenges, including border effects in the predictions or [...]
Calcium isotope constraints on Mesoarchean seawater
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The cause of the Great Oxidation Event ~2.4 billion-years-ago (Ga) is hotly debated. Recent models favor the emergence of continents as driving the event. However, we suggest that extensive shallow-marine carbonate platforms existed in the Mesoarchean. This conclusion is based on Ca isotopes from 2.8 Ga carbonate rocks, that constrains the Ca isotope value of Mesoarchean seawater to -0.5‰ [...]
Helmets Labeling Crops: Kenya Crop Type Dataset Created via Helmet-Mounted Cameras and Deep Learning
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Accurate, up-to-date agricultural monitoring is essential for assessing food production, particularly in countries like Kenya, where recurring climate extremes, including floods and droughts, exacerbate food insecurity challenges. In regions dominated by smallholder farmers, a significant obstacle to effective agricultural monitoring is the limited availability of current, detailed crop-type [...]
Leveraging Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) for Urban Climate Emulation
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Urban climate models are critical for understanding and addressing the impacts of urban climate change. Yet, process-based urban climate models face limitations of high-entry barriers and substantial computing resource consumption, prompting the development of data-driven methods. However, the recently developed urban climate emulators, being location-dependent, are less scalable and may overlook [...]
The impact hypothesis as a mechanism for the origin of the Amazon basin - analysis of antipodal impacts of celestial bodies and their impact on global morphotectonics
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Amazon Basin is the largest fluvial system on Earth, yet its central subsidence and asymmetrical drainage pattern remain partially unexplained by traditional geological models. This study introduces a novel impact-based hypothesis, proposing that the Amazon depression is a result of tectonic deformation at the intersection of seismic shockwaves originating from two major planetary impacts: [...]
Optimizing data usage in regional body wave tomography by using asynchronous network data and relative sensitivity kernels: an example from Patagonia
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A very frequent approach for studying lithospheric processes is to deploy temporary seismological networks in dedicated areas and to map the mantle structures with different approaches. One of them is the well-established relative travel time body wave tomography. Different circumstances often lead to a non uniform deployment of stations both in space and time, and a wish to combine data which [...]
A controlled release experiment for investigating methane measurement performance at landfills
Published: 2025-04-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences
We assessed the performance of various methane measurement solutions in landfill applications. Our study involved full-scale multipoint- and area-source (dispersed) controlled releases of methane from the ground surface of a closed 25-hectare landfill with collection system and a background rate of 24 kg/hr. Most quantification methods performed well, but the Mobile Tracer Correlation Emissions [...]
Assessing legacy nitrogen in groundwater using numerical models of the Long Island aquifer system, New York
Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Nitrogen transported along groundwater flow paths in coastal aquifers can contribute substantially to nitrogen loading into surface water receptors, particularly in hydrologic systems dominated by groundwater discharge. Nitrogen entrained in the aquifer is a function of land use and associated nitrogen sources at the time of groundwater recharge, which may differ considerably from present-day [...]
Artificial Intelligence-Based Joint Retrieval Algorithm for Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, and Atmospheric Water Vapor
Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The thermal infrared remote sensing parameters exhibit interdependent and mutually constrained relationships, which conventional methods fail to fully exploit for improving the overall retrieval accuracy across different parameters. To address this challenge, this study proposes an artificial intelligence-based method for jointly retrieving land surface temperature (LST), emissivity (LSE), and [...]
Drivers of changes in shoreline position of two small reef islands in the West Philippine Sea
Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences
This study examines the variations in the shoreline position of two atoll reef islands in the West Philippine Sea, Pag-asa Island, and Lawak Island, and identifies the influence of potential drivers of erosion. Data from field observations, beach profiling, and Google Earth Pro satellite images from 2004 to 2022 are used to identify shoreline movement for each island. Shoreline change is [...]
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Poised to Rocket: Modeling the Environmental Impact of LEO Satellite Constellations
Published: 2025-04-11
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physics
The proliferation of satellite megaconstellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) represents a significant advancement in global broadband connectivity. However, we urgently need to understand the potential environmental impacts, particularly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with these constellations. This study addresses a critical gap in modeling current and future GHG emissions by developing [...]