Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Artificial Intelligence in Climate Science: A State-of-the-Art Review (2020–2025)
Published: 2025-07-15
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Statistics and Probability
Climate change is intensifying extreme weather events and posing complex challenges to human and natural systems. In parallel, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) offer new tools to tackle climate science problems. AI can analyze vast climate datasets, improve forecasts, and optimize climate solutions at scales and speeds beyond traditional methods. For [...]
Microbe-vegetation-nutrient interactions affect long-term carbon accumulation in a northern peatland
Published: 2025-07-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Regional Responses to Oceanic Variability Constrain Global Drought Synchrony
Published: 2025-07-11
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Synchronized droughts threaten global food security, with concerns about increased frequency and duration under climate change. However, their long-term evolution and physical limits remain unknown. We analyze 61 drought networks over 120 years (1901–2020) of scPDSI data, employing a suite of network synchronization measures and empirical orthogonal functions to unravel the physical drivers and [...]
Warming in the Western Mediterranean Fuels Wetter European Storms and Heightens Extreme Flood Potential Rapid Mediterranean warming brings extreme floods risks for Europe
Published: 2025-07-10
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
The Mediterranean Sea is warming rapidly, with profound implications for regional hydroclimate extremes. The Gulf of Genoa, a critical source region for European storm systems, has exhibited a 1.17°C increase in sea surface temperature (SST) between 2010 and 2020. This study links accelerated SST warming to enhanced atmospheric moisture availability, suggesting a substantial increase in storm [...]
Aquascan: Graph-Based Learning for Distributed Marine Sensing
Published: 2025-07-04
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Marine monitoring faces unprecedented challenges as climate change and human activities reshape ocean ecosystems. Traditional tracking methods struggle with the scale and complexity of modern marine sensing needs. This paper proposes distributed networks of low-cost drifting sensors and presents a comparative study of heterogeneous graph neural networks (GNNs) versus Kalman filters for predicting [...]
Spatial Analysis of Lead (Pb) Contamination in Soils of the Savar Industrial Zone, Bangladesh Using QGIS-Based Interpolation
Published: 2025-07-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Lead (Pb) contamination poses significant environmental and public health risks in industrial regions. This study employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess the spatial distribution of Pb in soils across the Savar industrial zone, Bangladesh—an area characterized by dense industrial activity, including tanneries, textile mills, and metal-processing plants. Using point data from ten [...]
Spatial Analysis and Heatmap Visualization of Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in Dhaka and Mymensingh Divisions, Bangladesh
Published: 2025-07-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physiology
Arsenic contamination in groundwater poses a critical public health threat in Bangladesh, particularly in its central and northern regions. This study investigates the spatial distribution of arsenic concentrations across the Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions using geospatial clustering and interpolation techniques. A total of 1,124 groundwater samples were analyzed using Python-based spatial [...]
The 4th Global Coral Bleaching Event: Unprecedented, unbounded, unrelenting
Published: 2025-07-02
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Increasingly frequent marine heatwaves have escalated the prevalence and extent of mass coral bleaching events. When marine heatwaves impact reef areas across all tropical ocean basins within a common period, global-scale coral bleaching can unfold. Here, we elaborate previous analyses to define set of objective criteria for defining a Global Coral Bleaching Event. Using this definition, we [...]
An explainable machine learning prediction system for early-warning of heat stress on Florida’s Coral Reef
Published: 2025-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coral reefs are facing increasing threats from rising ocean temperatures, necessitating timely and localized prediction tools to inform reef management and conservation. This study introduces a machine learning framework capable of forecasting the onset of moderate coral heat stress at site-specific resolution on Florida’s Coral Reef. Leveraging the XGBoost algorithm, the data-driven prediction [...]
Satellite-based assessment of methane emissions from the Darvaza gas crater
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Methane (CH₄) is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and the gas-burning Darvaza crater in Turkmenistan is a rare and persistent emitter. There are substantial uncertainties regarding the date of the crater formation (assumed to be either in 1963 or 1971), the ignition of the fire, and the relation between the fire intensity and methane release. In this study, we reconstruct the fire history [...]
Lagged impacts of groundwater pumping on streamflow due to stream drying: Incorporation into analytical streamflow depletion estimation methods
Published: 2025-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Water management often requires accounting for reductions in streamflow caused by groundwater pumping (‘streamflow depletion’). Since streamflow depletion cannot be quantified from observational data, it is typically modeled. Analytical depletion functions (ADFs) are a low-cost, low-complexity approach for estimating streamflow depletion with utility for decision support, but ADFs adopt several [...]
Sediment storage quantification in the Black Forest highlights tectonic influence on typically wide and shallow valleys
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Quantifying sedimentary volumes in mountain valleys can not only enhance our understanding of Quaternary valley evolution and river dynamics but also yield critical insights into hydrogeological characteristics. In contrast to the thoroughly investigated Upper Rhine Graben, little coherent information is available on the subsurface structure of adjacent Black Forest valleys. This study therefore [...]
Comprehensive quantification of production costs for large-scale kelp aquaculture and cost reduction opportunities
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A highly realistic techno-economic analysis (TEA) was developed to assess the cost of production (COP, US $ per fresh tonne kelp) for large-scale kelp aquaculture. The TEA resolves feedbacks across structural design and response, operational requirements and decisions, site properties, and biological response. We apply the TEA to a Saccharina latissima farming operation at a 100m deep, 405 [...]
Assessing the Efficacy and Climate Resilience of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems in Jodhpur District, Rajasthan: A Geospatial and Hydrological Modeling Approach
Published: 2025-06-09
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences
Traditional Water Harvesting Systems (TWHS) are critical for water security in arid regions like Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, India, yet their contemporary efficacy and climate resilience remain inadequately quantified. This study comprehensively assesses selected TWHS, primarily nadis and johads, by integrating geospatial analysis for inventory and characterization, hydrological modeling (SCS-CN [...]
Chiwi Kawi: Field Report 2025 - Chiricahua Sky Island
Published: 2025-06-07
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences
This field report details the environmental dynamics of the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona. Adding to the previous 2022-2023 field report, these observations begin with the impact of the 2023 summer monsoons and the extreme drought conditions leading into 2025. Extraordinary stories from 2024 include wildlife observations of blonde and ginger coati, a lone wolf, jaguar tracks, and a yearling [...]