Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Climate
The Oceanic Response to Winds in the Antarctic Sea Ice Loss at the end of the 1970s
Published: 2026-03-28
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The sea ice extent (SIE) in the Southern Ocean experienced a substantial decline in the late 1970s, although less pronounced than the one observed in 2016. Though several studies explain the decline since 2016, the 1970s drop is critical in understanding the long-term variability of SIE. To investigate the underlying mechanisms for this decline, we conducted wind stress-forced multi- ensemble [...]
Beyond efficiency: Disentangling structural and behavioral sufficiency in U.S. residential decarbonization pathways
Published: 2026-03-16
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Decarbonization strategies in the residential sector have largely focused on lowering the carbon intensity of energy supply and improving end-use efficiency. Sufficiency, defined as avoiding unnecessary energy demand while maintaining well-being, remains largely absent from national energy system analyses, obscuring the relative and combined roles of efficiency and sufficiency in reducing energy [...]
Nationwide deadwood mapping reveals rising mountain forests vulnerability
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Climate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences
Forest mortality is increasing globally under climate change, making detailed, large-scale monitoring essential for understanding ecosystem responses and guiding adaptive forest management. Here, we present a spatio-temporal assessment of standing deadwood in Switzerland from 2018 to 2023, derived from centimeter-scale high-resolution aerial imagery. We reveal a consistent upslope concentration [...]
Causal-Discovery Signals Between Climatic and Socioeconomic Candidate Correlates and Antimicrobial Resistance in Escherichia coli
Published: 2026-03-10
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Public Health
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a rapidly escalating global health crisis threatening human, animal, and environmental well-being. While its spread is often linked to antibiotic use, its environmental and socioeconomic drivers remain poorly understood. This study investigates observational causal-discovery signals between AMR and climatic and socioeconomic drivers across 49 U.S. states, using [...]
The distribution of Earth’s wind-blown sand dunes
Published: 2026-03-05
Subjects: Climate, Geology, Geomorphology
Sand dunes develop when there is a source of sediment and wind capable of saltating that sediment. Dune morphology and occurrence can then be used to infer the distribution of sediment sources and climate conditions during their formation. This is particularly useful for inference of past climate from relict dunes or the sedimentary record, and for climate conditions where direct observation is [...]
The Response of Onset and Withdrawal of the Indian Summer Monsoon to Volcanic Aerosols
Published: 2026-03-04
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology
Large volcanic eruptions are a source of climate variability, affecting the seasonal mean precipitation of the Indian summer monsoon. However, the extent to which changes in seasonal precipitation can be attributed to variations in monsoon length vs. monsoon intensity has remained unclear. Using large ensemble simulations of idealised volcanic eruptions at varying latitudes, we find that the [...]
Visualizing Pyroclimatology
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Education, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Background: Wildland fire activity often demonstrates distinct seasonality resulting from the alignment of climatologically favorable fuels, weather, and ignitions. Characterization of windows favoring extreme fire behavior and beneficial fire potential at relevant spatiotemporal scales provides context for interpreting fire regimes and informing wildland fire management. Methods: Adapting the [...]
A bias-corrected & downscaled massive ensemble to diagnose uncertainty in climate impact projections
Published: 2026-02-23
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate
Projections of climate change and climate impacts requires bias-corrected, downscaled output from ensembles of earth system models (ESMs). Potential impacts are uncertain due to modeling differences between ESMs, internal variability stemming from the chaos of the earth system, and differences in the historical reference datasets used to bias-corrected and downscale ESM output. Here, we introduce [...]
Quantifying the Causal Strength of Compound Drought–Heatwaves: Implications for Fire Events and Cropland Productivity
Published: 2026-02-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology
Compound drought and heatwave (CDHW) events represent one of the most disruptive forms of climate extremes, as the simultaneous occurrence of dry and hot conditions signifies their impacts far beyond those of individual events. Yet, despite their increasing significance, the causal influence of CDHW frequency and severity on fire activity and crop yield variability remains poorly quantified, [...]
Assessing and Correcting Bias in Gridded Reference Evapotranspiration over Agricultural Lands Across the Contiguous United States
Published: 2026-02-19
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Water Resource Management
Gridded reference evapotranspiration (ETₒ) data are widely used for agricultural water management and remote sensing evapotranspiration (RSET) models, but biases can arise where coarse meteorological inputs fail to capture agricultural microclimates. We investigated biases in the gridMET ETₒ product across irrigated agricultural areas of the contiguous United States using ETₒ calculated from 793 [...]
MACROM: An Optimal Control Model for Balancing Climate Change Abatement and Damage Trade-offs
Published: 2026-02-11
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
The current pace of global emissions reduction is inadequate to meet the Paris Agreement temperature target of 1.5°C. While carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is increasingly viewed as necessary to meet these targets, questions remain about the optimal scale and timing of deployment when both costs and climate damages are considered. Here we present MACROM, an optimal control climate-economic model [...]
Widespread reliance of rainfed crops on upwind irrigated agriculture in India
Published: 2026-02-03
Subjects: Agriculture, Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Hydrology, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Rainfed crops account for approximately 40% of India’s food production and support 60% of its livestock. Although linked to oceanic monsoon rainfall, their productivity also depends on terrestrial evaporation, particularly in the non-monsoon season. However, the degree to which rainfed crops also rely on moisture sourced from upwind irrigated areas, remains largely unknown. Using a combination of [...]
A Quality-Control Procedure for Bio-Optical Applications of Hyperspectral Radiometric Upwelling Radiance and Downwelling Irradiance Profiles Measured by BioGeoChemical-Argo Floats.
Published: 2026-01-26
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Autonomous in-situ radiometric observations are increasingly used to constrain bio-optical processes and validate satellite ocean-color products, such as remote sensing reflectance and diffuse attenuation coefficients. Because these observations are collected independently of weather and sea-state conditions, their application critically depends on robust quality control. Starting in 2012, the [...]
Study on Land-use Change (LUC)-induced carbon emissions
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Studies
Land-use change (LUC)-induced carbon emissions (ELUC, defined as net carbon emissions and removals) have accounted for approximately one-third of global anthropogenic carbon emissions since industrialization. While its contribution has declined in recent decades, ELUC still represents a significant component of the global carbon budget, comprising 11% of anthropogenic emissions during 2012–2022. [...]
Two Wind Farms, Two Islands: Physics Informed Causal Wind Analysis in New Zealand
Published: 2026-01-06
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Power and Energy
Wind power forecasting models often rely on correlation-based methods, which can misinterpret the relationship between meteorological variables and power generation. A key example is air density: while physics suggests denser air should increase available wind power, observational data can show a negative correlation because high-pressure regimes (high density) often coincide with lower wind [...]