Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
On the estimation of landslide intensity, hazard and density via data-driven models
Published: 2022-03-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Maps that attempt to predict landslide occurrences have essentially stayed the same since Brabb, E.E., Pampeyan, E.H. and Bonilla, M.G. (1972) Landslide susceptibility in San Mateo County, California (No. 360), US Geological Survey. The tools have certainly changed in fifty years. But, the geomorphological community addressed and still addresses this issue by estimating whether a given slope is [...]
Rapid tremor migration during few minute-long slow earthquakes in Cascadia
Published: 2022-03-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Slow earthquakes are now commonly found to display a wide range of durations, moments, and slip and propagation speeds. But not all types of slow earthquakes have been examined in detail. Here we probe tremor bursts with durations between 1 and 30 minutes, which are likely driven by few minute-long bursts of aseismic slip. We use a coherence based technique to detect thousands of tremor bursts [...]
Self-replicating subduction zone initiation by polarity reversal
Published: 2022-03-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Tectonics and Structure
Subduction zones have recurrently formed on Earth. Previous studies have, however, suggested that they are unlikely to start in the interior of a pristine ocean. Instead, they seem to be more likely to form from another pre-existing subduction zone. One widely cited conceptual model to start new subduction zones is polarity reversal, resulting from the shutdown of a pre-existent subduction zone [...]
Fire-vegetation interactions in Arctic tundra and their spatial variability
Published: 2022-03-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Plant Sciences, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Circumpolar tundra has experienced a greater increase in temperatures compared to any other biome, with a magnitude of the increase nearly three times the global average. Widespread shrubification associated with pronounced observed warming is gradually transforming the tundra ecosystem structure and function. This study confirms that a shrub-dominated fire-biomass positive feedback loop is [...]
Multilevel multifidelity Monte Carlo methods for assessing coastal flood risk
Published: 2022-03-14
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Risk Analysis, Statistical Methodology, Statistics and Probability
When choosing an appropriate hydrodynamic model, there is always a compromise between accuracy and computational cost, with high fidelity models being more expensive than low fidelity ones. However, when assessing uncertainty, we can use a multifidelity approach to take advantage of the accuracy of high fidelity models and the computational efficiency of low fidelity models. Here, we apply the [...]
Real-Time Streamflow Forecasting Framework, Implementation and Post-Analysis Using Deep Learning
Published: 2022-03-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences
Rainfall-runoff modeling and streamflow prediction using deep learning algorithms have been studied significantly in the last few years. The majority of these studies focus on the simulation and testing of historical datasets. Deployment and operation of a real-time streamflow forecast model using deep learning will face additional data and computational challenges such as inaccurate rainfall [...]
The development of the eastern Orpheus rift basin, offshore eastern Canada: A case study of the interplay between rift-related faulting and salt deposition and flow
Published: 2022-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
The salt-rich Orpheus rift basin, part of the eastern North American (ENAM) rift system, formed during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic prior to opening of the Atlantic Ocean. Using a dense grid of 2D seismic-reflection lines, data from nearby wells, and information from adjacent ENAM rift basins, we have established a tectonostratigraphic framework, identified key structural elements, and [...]
Abrupt shift to El Niño-like mean state conditions in the tropical Pacific during the Little Ice Age
Published: 2022-03-11
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Hydrology
The mean state of the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere climate, in particular its east-west asymmetry, has profound consequences for regional climates and for the El Niño/ Southern Oscillation variability. Here we present a new high-resolution paleohydrological record using the stable-hydrogen-isotopic composition of terrestrial-lipid biomarkers (δDwax) from a 1,400-year-old lake sedimentary [...]
Multi-faceted analyses of seasonal trends and drivers of land surface variables in Indo-Gangetic river basins
Published: 2022-03-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Statistics and Probability
The Indo-Gangetic river basins feature a wide range of climatic, topographic, and land cover characteristics providing a suitable setting for the exploration of multivariate time series. Here, we collocated a comprehensive feature space for these river basins including Earth observation time series on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), surface water area (SWA), and snow cover area [...]
Marine ecosystem changepoints spread under ocean warming in an Earth System Model
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Sudden shifts in marine plankton communities in response to environmental changes are of special concern because of their low predictability and high potential impacts on ocean ecosystems. We explored how anthropogenic climate change influences the spatial extent and frequency of changepoints in plankton populations by comparing the behavior of a plankton community in a coupled Earth System Model [...]
Climate nonlinearities: selection, uncertainty, projections, & damages
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences
\textbf{Abstract:} Climate projections are highly uncertain; this uncertainty is costly and impedes progress on climate policy. This uncertainty is primarily parametric (what numbers do we plug into our equations?) and structural (what equations do we use in the first place?). The former is straightforward to characterise in principle, though may be computationally intensive for complex climate [...]
State-dependence of Cenozoic thermal extremes
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Oxygen isotopes in sediments reflect Earth's past temperature, revealing a cooling over the Cenozoic punctuated by multimillenial thermal extreme events. These extremes are captured by the generalized extreme value distribution, and the distribution's shape changes with baseline temperature such that large thermal extremes are more likely in warmer climates. Anthropogenic warming has the [...]
Geodynamics of continental rift initiation and evolution
Published: 2022-03-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
A rift is a nascent plate boundary where continental lithosphere is extended and possibly broken. In the geologic past, rifting played a major role in shaping the surface of our planet, while at present, continental rifts are of societal relevance by hosting key georesources such as geothermal energy and ore deposits. This Review discusses fundamental rift processes, geodynamic forces and their [...]
Magma chamber detected beneath an arc volcano with high-resolution velocity images
Published: 2022-03-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Volcanology
Arc volcanoes are underlain by complex systems of molten-rock reservoirs ranging from melt-poor mush zones to melt-rich magma chambers. Petrological and satellite data indicate that eruptible magma chambers form in the topmost few kilometres of the crust. However, very few chambers have ever been definitively located, suggesting that most are too short-lived or too small to be imaged, which has [...]
Climate control on the relationship between erosion rate and fluvial topography
Published: 2022-03-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Conceptual and theoretical models for landscape evolution suggest that fluvial topography is sensitive to climate. However, it remains challenging to demonstrate a compelling link between fluvial topography and climate in natural landscapes. One possible reason is that many studies compare erosion rates to climate data, although theoretical studies show that, at steady state, climate is encoded [...]