Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
The open collection of geoscience graphics
Published: 2022-02-15
Subjects: Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces, Instructional Media Design, Planetary Sciences
A standard internet image search on a geoscientific topic is common practice, and offers a plethora of images. However, the suggested images provide neither a guarantee in the accuracy of the science content being portrayed, nor in their visual accessibility or clarity. Being curated by both scientists and artists, the online s-ink collection (https://s-ink.org) is a sharing platform for high [...]
Economic and biophysical limits to seaweed-based climate solutions
Published: 2022-02-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets are driving interest in opportunities for biomass-based negative emissions and bioenergy, including from marine sources such as seaweed. Yet the biophysical and economic limits to farming seaweed at scales relevant to the global carbon budget have not been assessed in detail. We use coupled seaweed growth and technoeconomic models to estimate the costs of [...]
Strong methane point sources contribute a disproportionate fraction of total emissions across multiple basins in the U.S.
Published: 2022-02-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding, prioritizing, and mitigating methane (CH4) emissions requires quantifying methane budgets from facility scales to regional scales with the ability to differentiate between source sectors. We deployed a tiered observing system for multiple basins in the United States (San Joaquin Valley, Uintah, Denver-Julesberg, Permian, Marcellus). We quantify strong point source emissions (>10 kg [...]
Climate-Catchment-Soil Control on Hydrological Droughts in Peninsular India
Published: 2022-01-28
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Risk Analysis
Most land surface system models and observational assessments ignore detailed soil characteristics while describing the drought attributes such as growth, duration, recovery, and the termination rate of the event. With the national-scale digital soil maps available for India, we assessed the climate-catchment-soil nexus using daily observed streamflow records from 98 sites in tropical [...]
Explaining Variance of Pleistocene Climate Sensitivity: Path, Epochal and CO2 dependence
Published: 2022-01-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Improved high-resolution paleo records of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and reconstructions of Earth’s surface temperature are available. We analyze one authoritative Pleistocene data set to explore how the climate sensitivity parameter S varies under different system states, using linear regression of mean annual surface temperature changes against CO2 forcing changes. On the [...]
Traversing the academic ladder as an early career researcher in earth and environmental sciences
Published: 2022-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
There is growing concern in Higher Education around job security, work-life balance and inequalities, and early career academics must make difficult trade-offs and life choices. Ample literature confirms that women navigating academia face additional challenges. Few studies have sought to connect contractual circumstances, employment priorities and their impacts on the life choices of individual [...]
Global and regional drivers of power plant CO2 emissions over the last three decades
Published: 2022-01-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The past three decades have witnessed the dramatic expansion of global biomass- and fossil fuel-fired power plants, but the tremendously diverse power infrastructure shapes different spatial and temporal CO2 emission characteristics. Here, by combining Global Power plant Emissions Database (GPED v1.1) constructed in this study and the previously developed China coal-fired power Plant Emissions [...]
A Comprehensive Web-based System for Flood Inundation Map Generation and Comparative Analysis Based on Height Above Nearest Drainage
Published: 2021-12-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
It is critical to obtain accurate flood extent predictions in a timely manner in order to reduce flood-related casualties and economic losses. Running a real-time flood inundation mapping model is a critical step in supporting quick flood response decisions. Most inundation systems, on the other hand, are either overly demanding in terms of data and computing power or have limited interaction and [...]
Towards Progressive Geospatial Information Processing on Web Systems: A Case Study for Watershed Analysis in Iowa
Published: 2021-12-25
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are available as stand-alone desktop applications as well as web platforms for vector- and raster-based geospatial data processing and visualization. While each approach offers certain advantages, limitations exist that motivate the development of hybrid systems that will increase the productivity of users for performing interactive data analytics using [...]
Quantifying the environmental impact of a major coal mine project on the adjacent Great Barrier Reef ecosystems
Published: 2021-12-23
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography, Oil, Gas, and Energy
A major coal mine project in Queensland, Australia, is currently under review. It is planned to be located about 10 km away from the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA). Sediment dispersal patterns and their impact on marine ecosystems have not been properly assessed yet. Here, we simulate the dispersal of different sediment types with a high-resolution ocean model, and derive their [...]
Filtering ground noise from LiDAR returns produces inferior models of forest aboveground biomass in heterogenous landscapes
Published: 2021-12-14
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Airborne LiDAR has become an essential data source for large-scale, high-resolution modeling of forest aboveground biomass and carbon stocks, enabling predictions with much higher resolution and accuracy than can be achieved using optical imagery alone. Ground noise filtering – that is, excluding returns from LiDAR point clouds based on simple height thresholds – is a common practice meant to [...]
Multi-proxy assessment of surface sediments using APPI-P FTICR-MS reveals a complex biogeochemical record along a salinity gradient in the Pearl River estuary and coastal South China Sea
Published: 2021-12-10
Subjects: Analytical Chemistry, Biogeochemistry, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Pearl River drains the second largest watershed in China, funnelling large amounts of freshwater and organic matter into the northern part of the South China Sea through an estuary characterized by pronounced biogeochemical gradients. In this study we analyzed organic extracts of surface sediments collected along land-sea transect that captures a transition from freshwater environment at the [...]
Large-Scale Controlled Experiment Demonstrates Effectiveness of Methane Leak Detection and Repair Programs at Oil and Gas Facilities
Published: 2021-12-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
The importance of reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations as a near-term climate action is widely recognized. Most jurisdictions around the globe using leak detection and repair (LDAR) programs to find and fix methane leaks. In this work, we empirically evaluate the efficacy of LDAR programs using a large-scale, bottom-up, randomized controlled field experiment across ~200 oil and [...]
Wildfire Smoke Exposure Worsens Learning Outcomes
Published: 2021-12-08
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Statistical Models
Wildfires have increased in frequency and severity over the past two decades, threatening to undo substantial air quality improvements. We investigate the effect of wildfire smoke exposure on learning outcomes across the US using standardized test scores from 2009-2016 for nearly 11,700 school districts and satellite-derived estimates of daily smoke exposure. Relative to a school year with no [...]
Evaluating essential features of proppant transport at engineering scales combining field measurements with machine learning algorithms
Published: 2021-12-06
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydraulic Engineering, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Sustainability
The characterization of the proppant transport at a field-engineering scale is still challenging due to the lack of direct subsurface measurements. Features that control the proppant transport may link the experimental and numerical observations to the practical operations at a field scale. To improve the numerical and laboratory simulations, we propose a machine-learning-based workflow to [...]