Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Contemporary and Relic Waters Strongly Decoupled in Arid Alpine Environments
Published: 2023-10-02
Subjects: Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Deciphering the dominant controls on interconnections between groundwater, surface water, and climate is critical to understanding water cycles in arid environments, yet persistent uncertainties in the fundamental hydrology of these systems remain. The growing demand for critical minerals such as lithium and associated water demands in these arid environments has amplified the urgency to address [...]
Sub-kilometre scale distribution of snow depth on Arctic sea ice from Soviet drifting stations
Published: 2021-07-23
Subjects: Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The sub-kilometre scale distribution of snow depth on Arctic sea ice impacts atmosphere-ice fluxes of energy and mass, and is of importance for satellite estimates of sea ice thickness from both radar and lidar altimeters. While information about the mean of this distribution is increasingly available from modelling and remote sensing, the full distribution cannot yet be resolved. We analyse [...]
Modelled Soil Temperature Sensitivity to Variable Snow and Vegetation Conditions in Low-Relief Coastal Mountains, Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut, Labrador
Published: 2021-05-24
Subjects: Other Applied Mathematics, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding permafrost vulnerability and resilience to climate warming is critical for predicting impacts on northern communities and ecosystems. The thermal characteristics of near-surface permafrost are influenced by effects from overlying vegetation and snow cover, both of which are changing in northern environments. The association between vegetation and snow is important in the coastal [...]
What does the NDVI really tell us about crops? Insight from proximal spectral field sensors
Published: 2020-09-01
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The use of remote sensing in agriculture is expanding due to innovation in sensors and platforms. Drones, high resolution instruments on CubeSats, and robot mounted proximal phenotyping sensors all feature in this drive. Common threads include a focus on high spatial and spectral resolution coupled with the use of machine learning methods for relating observations to crop parameters. As the [...]
Rapid heat discharge during deep-sea eruptions generates megaplumes and disperses tephra
Published: 2020-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Geology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Volcanology
Deep-marine volcanism drives Earth’s most energetic transfers of heat and mass between the crust and the oceans. Seafloor magmatic activity has been correlated in time with the appearance of massive enigmatic plumes of hydrothermal fluid, known as megaplumes, yet little is known of the primary source and intensity of the hydrothermal energy release that occurs during [...]
Variational Ensemble-Transform Filtering of HFR & ADCP velocities in the ice-free Chukchi Sea
Published: 2020-07-15
Subjects: Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Chukchi Sea (CS) is the gateway to the Arctic Ocean (AO) for Pacific waters entering from Bering Strait (BS) and also a potential location for future offshore oil extraction. Since 2010, regional CS data has become more plentiful with acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP) moored throughout the northwestern portion of the shelf along with coastal high-frequency radar (HFR) surface [...]
Preliminary hand-held thermal imaging results of sequential monitoring of a simulated deceased individual on terrestrial ground
Published: 2020-02-26
Subjects: Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Thermal imaging is commonly used by forensic search investigators to locate missing persons, but there is little research on it’s actual effectiveness to detect individuals after death. This paper aims to answer fundamental questions on how long thermal imaging is effective to detect a body lying on the surface and when is the optimal time in a day to survey. A simulated murder victim, using a [...]
‘Scallywag Bunkers’: Geophysical Investigations of WW2 Auxiliary Unit Operational Bases (OBs) in the UK
Published: 2020-02-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Geography, Other Earth Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In 1940, with the fall of France imminent, Britain prepared for invasion. After Dunkirk, with most armour and transport lost, a defence ‘stop line’ (GHQ Line) was prepared. Local Defence Volunteers (later Home Guard) were raised to buy time for the Home Army to deploy. Secret ‘Auxiliary Units’ were also formed, tasked with ‘Scallywagging’ – guerrilla activities ––in the invading army’s rear. 4-8 [...]
Information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model for Optimal Flood Management
Published: 2019-06-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Sustainability, Systems Engineering, Water Resource Management
The increasing impact of flooding urges more effective flood management strategies to guarantee sustainable ecosystem development. Recent catastrophes underline the importance of avoiding local flood management, but characterizing large scale basin wide approaches for systemic flood risk management. Here we introduce an information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model (iPDM) for the optimization of [...]
Topology, homogeneity and scale factors for object detection: application of eCognition software for urban mapping using multispectral satellite image
Published: 2019-01-25
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Education, Educational Methods, Engineering, Environmental Education, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces, International and Area Studies, Life Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Computer Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Science and Mathematics Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science, Sustainability
The research scope of this paper is to apply spatial object based image analysis (OBIA) method for processing panchromatic multispectral image covering study area of Brussels for urban mapping. The aim is to map different land cover types and more specifically, built-up areas from the very high resolution (VHR) satellite image using OBIA approach. A case study covers urban landscapes in the [...]
Higher potential compound flood risk in Northern Europe under anthropogenic climate change
Published: 2018-07-18
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Statistics and Probability
The published version of this article is available at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/9/eaaw5531. Compound flooding (CF) is an extreme event taking place in low-lying coastal areas as a result of co-occurring high sea level and large amounts of runoff, caused by precipitation. The impact from the two hazards occurring individually can be significantly lower than the result of their [...]
The Extraordinary Mediocrity of the Holocene
Published: 2018-03-15
Subjects: Climate, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
The extinction of multiple genera of large-bodied mammals during the Holocene interglacial transition has been attributed to three hypothesized causes: human migration, climate change, and an extra-terrestrial impact. Two of these hypotheses, climate change and extra-terrestrial impactor, would predict that the Holocene interglacial transition was uniquely stressful for large-bodied mammals. To [...]
Application of discrete-element methods to approximate sea-ice dynamics
Published: 2018-02-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Lagrangian models of sea-ice dynamics have several advantages over Eulerian continuum models. Spatial discretization on the ice-floe scale are natural for Lagrangian models and offer exact solutions for mechanical non-linearities with arbitrary sea-ice concentrations. This allows for improved model performance in ice-marginal zones. Furthermore, Lagrangian models can explicitly simulate jamming [...]
Distributions of geohopanoids in peat: implications for the use of hopanoid-based proxies in natural archives
Published: 2018-02-04
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Hopanoids are pentacyclic triterpenoids produced by a wide range of bacteria. Within modern settings, hopanoids mostly occur in the biological 17β,21β(H) configuration. However, in some modern peatlands, the C31 hopane is present as the thermally-mature 17α,21β(H) stereoisomer. This has traditionally been ascribed to isomerisation at the C-17 position catalysed by the acidic environment. However, [...]
A new global mode of Earth deformation: seasonal cycle detected
Published: 2017-11-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We have detected a global mode of Earth deformation that is predicted by theory. Precise positioning of GPS sites distributed worldwide reveals that in February to March the northern hemisphere compresses (and the southern hemisphere expands), such that sites near the North Pole move downward by 3.0 mm, and sites near the equator are pulled northwards by 1.5 mm. The opposite pattern of [...]