Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Climate
Twin indicators of coastal vulnerability: land subsidence and mangrove extent change in Dili, Timor-Leste
Published: 2026-08-06
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Natural Resources and Conservation
Mangrove forests and land subsidence are major drivers of coastal vulnerability rarely quantified together outside the well-studied deltas of Southeast Asia. This study provides the first satellite-based, twin-indicator assessment of coastal vulnerability for Dili, Timor-Leste, combining Sentinel-1 InSAR time series analysis of land subsidence with Global Mangrove Watch extent change over a [...]
Plume Origin Localisation with Computer Vision
Published: 2026-08-05
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Satellite remote sensing has become a critical tool for monitoring, measuring, and mitigating methane emissions globally. Reliable attribution of methane plumes to their source facility is needed to enable emission mitigation action, robust emissions accounting, and regulatory oversight. Although experts can manually attribute plumes to individual facilities, automated approaches are required for [...]
Historical Pattern Effects and Climate Sensitivity Revisited with Novel Constraints on Past Warming Patterns
Published: 2026-07-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The historical record (1850–present) can constrain equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) only if we know the patterns of sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration (SIC) that shape radiative feedbacks. Feedbacks depend on spatial patterns of SST and SIC (“pattern effects”), yet the impact of historical SST/SIC uncertainty on feedback estimates has not been systematically quantified. [...]
Erosion of Natural Cooling Infrastructure in Southeast Asian Cities: Comparative Land Surface Temperature Effects of Wetland and Paddy Loss in Phnom Penh and Can Tho
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring
Rapid urbanisation across Southeast Asia is displacing two natural cooling resources: urban water bodies and peri-urban paddy fields. The biophysical relationship between land cover and land surface temperature (LST) is established at regional and continental scales, but conversion-attributable, satellite-derived quantification of wetland and paddy loss at city scale, compared directly within a [...]
Stable estimates of when global temperature thresholds will be crossed: least-squares fits as the end date of the fitted span is reduced
Published: 2026-07-07
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Reliable estimates of when global mean temperature will exceed the Paris Agreement's 2°C threshold1 are generally derived from emissions scenarios and climate models rather than from the observed temperature record itself. This study investigates whether the observed warming trajectory alone can provide a stable empirical estimate of the crossing date. Least-squares exponential, quadratic and [...]
A multi-indicator framework for assessing the likelihood of ENSO impacts across southern Africa
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant source of seasonal predictability for southern Africa, yet operational guidance rarely conveys which agriculturally relevant variables it can skillfully predict, or where ENSO impacts are most likely. We present an operational analysis framework that converts an ENSO state, classified by phase and strength, into gridded, analogue-composite [...]
Resolving microscale near surface temperature variability during a heatwave using a dense sensor network
Published: 2026-06-29
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
High-resolution measurements of near-surface temperature are essential for understanding environmental responses to extreme weather events, yet are rarely available from dense, regularly spaced in situ measurement grids. Here, we analyse temperature measurements derived from a dense network of over 3,000 nodal seismometers deployed across a 6 km² area in North Yorkshire, UK, during the July 2022 [...]
A Phanerozoic Atlas of Earth’s Atmosphere, Surface, and Interior Derived from the PANALESIS Plate Tectonic Model
Published: 2026-06-22
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Other Environmental Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
Reconstructing the Earth system evolution through deep time requires spatially consistent, multi‑layer datasets that integrate geological, geophysical, and climatic information. Here we present a unified, high‑resolution (10×10km) global dataset describing the Earth’s evolution over the past 545 million years. This atlas provides 45 time slices spanning the Phanerozoic, each including quantified [...]
ENSO-Driven Modulation of the Caribbean Subsurface Salinity Maximum
Published: 2026-06-16
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This study identifies El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as the primary driver of interannual subsurface salinity variability in the Caribbean Sea. Using 30 years of high-resolution, data-assimilative ocean reanalysis (1993–2022), we show that the Subsurface Salinity Maximum (SSM) closely tracks ENSO cycles: El Niño events correspond to a saltier and deeper SSM, while La Niña drives a fresher [...]
Why the Earth Exhibits Interhemispheric Albedo Symmetry: Erosion–formation asymmetry of low-cloud responses to circulation reorganization.
Published: 2026-06-16
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Earth exhibits a striking near symmetry in interhemispheric mean albedo despite substantial asymmetries in surface properties, aerosols, and geography. Whether this symmetry is coincidental or dynamically constrained remains unresolved. Here we present a minimal theoretical framework showing that a moist atmosphere provides a physically constrained, but bounded, tendency to oppose [...]
Implicit-tuning signal quantified through a tri-experiment design in a legacy spectral GCM
Published: 2026-06-14
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
We quantify the climate response of the MGO atmospheric general circulation model (MGO-03 T42L25) to two alternative implementations of a structural fix in the vertical-exchange parameterization. A companion parallelization study (under review) identifies an unintended inter-latitude state leakage through SAVE-persistent working arrays in the boundary-layer scheme. Here we contrast the legacy [...]
Deglacial reconstruction of the spatial extent and intensity of the North Atlantic Subtropical High
Published: 2026-06-13
Subjects: Climate, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rainfall-related hazards are growing in southeastern North America (SENA) but well-documented climate-model biases cast doubt on projected rainfall changes. Using leaf-wax biomarkers (δDwax) at White Pond, SC and Hall’s Cave, TX, we reconstruct North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) variability across the last deglaciation (21 to 10 ka) to assess model fidelity. During the Younger Dryas, when [...]
A scoping review to map research gaps and opportunities relating to heat-related health hazards in countries surrounding Lake Victoria, Africa.
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Public Health, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability
Urban populations in sub-Saharan Africa are at rising risks of climate-related health hazards due to global climate change and uncontrolled rapid urbanization. Despite the increasing recognition of these challenges, the extent to which urban climates impact health outcomes in Africa remains poorly understood. East African countries surrounding the Lake Victoria Basin (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, [...]
Novel Data-driven High-Frequency Mass Change Models from GRACE orbit residuals
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Glaciology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a fully data-driven framework for transforming residual K-band range-rate (KBRR) data from GRACE into 5-day mass change models expressed in Equivalent Water Height (EWH). The approach first derives residual range and Line-of-Sight Gravity Differences (LGDs) from monthly post-fit residual range-rates and combines them with 5-day post-fit residuals. A hybrid formulation, merging LGD- and [...]
Dress Rehearsal: 2023 El Niño Anticipatory Action Somalia, in the Shadow of 1997
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Meteorology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography
In 2023 Somalia saw the largest-ever scale of anticipatory action (AA) linked to a seasonal forecast. $24m was spent on preparedness and early response, based on forecasted flooding driven by El Niño and a positiveIn 2023 Somalia saw the largest-ever scale of anticipatory action (AA) linked to a seasonal forecast. $24m was spent on preparedness and early response, based on forecasted flooding [...]