Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Assessing automated gap imputation of regional scale groundwater level data sets with typical gap patterns
Published: 2023-01-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Large groundwater level (GWL) data sets are often patchy with hydrographs containing continuous gaps and irregular measurement frequencies. However, most statistical time series analyses require regular observations, thus hydrographs with larger gaps are routinely excluded from further analysis despite the loss of coverage and representativity of an initially large data set. Missing values can be [...]
Analysis of nationwide groundwater monitoring networks using lumped-parameter models
Published: 2022-12-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Many countries maintain nationwide groundwater networks to monitor the status of their groundwater resources. For effective groundwater resource management, it is fundamental to understand the groundwater dynamics measured in the individual monitoring wells. Nationwide monitoring networks typically cover multiple aquifer systems with different degrees of environmental complexity. The analysis of [...]
Shortening ice seasons and changing phenology affect under-ice lake thermal dynamics
Published: 2022-12-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Temperate lakes worldwide are losing ice cover but the implications for under-ice thermal dynamics are poorly constrained. Using a 90-year record of ice phenology from a temperate lake, we examined trends, variability, and drivers of ice phenology. The onset of ice formation decreased by 23 days century-1 which can be largely attributed to warming air temperatures. Ice-off date has become [...]
Citizen and Machine Learning-aided High-resolution mapping of urban heat exposure and stress
Published: 2022-12-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Through conversion of land cover to more built-up, impervious surfaces, cities are creating hotter environments for urban residents. Existing measurements of heat and heat stress, however, are often insufficient to capture intra-urban variability of exposure. This study provides a replicable method for modeling air temperature, humidity, and heat stress over an urban area, engaging citizens in [...]
Systemic Vulnerabilities in Hispanic and Latinx Immigrant Communities Led to the Reliance on an Informal Warning System in the December 10–11, 2021 Tornado Outbreak
Published: 2022-12-10
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
On December 10–11, 2021, the deadliest December tornado outbreak on record produced a family of EF4 tornadoes that severely impacted communities in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. Although the National Weather Service anticipated the outbreak three days earlier, not all communities received life-saving information before, during, or after the disaster. To examine systemic [...]
Basin-scale hydrodynamics and physical connectivity in a Great Patagonian Lake
Published: 2022-12-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Patagonian lakes are one of the most unexplored aquatic environments on Earth, and little is known about their thermo-hydrodynamics and current trophic state. Meanwhile, increasing urbanization and industrialization in their catchments compromise their health. Here, we investigate Lake Llanquihue, one of the Earth's great freshwater bodies in Northern Patagonia, Chile. Still considered a pristine [...]
Standardised indices to monitor energy droughts
Published: 2022-12-01
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
To mitigate the effects of climate change, energy systems are becoming increasingly reliant on renewable energy sources. Since these energy sources are typically dependent on the prevailing weather, renewable energy systems are susceptible to shortages during certain weather conditions. As renewable sources become larger contributors to the energy mix, the risks associated with these shortages, [...]
Disentangling the effects of climate change and reoligotrophication on primary production in a large lake
Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences
Climate change and reduction in nutrient loads have significant effects on primary production and phytoplankton growth dynamics. Since in the last few decades in many regions, nutrients in lakes were reduced simultaneously as the climate changed. Yet, it remains unclear which of the two has impacted primary production the most. In this study, we couple the General Ocean Turbulence Model with the [...]
Technical note: A procedure to clean, decompose and aggregate time series
Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics and Probability
Errors, gaps and outliers complicate and sometimes invalidate the analysis of time series. While most fields have developed their own strategy to clean the raw data, no generic procedure has been promoted to standardize the pre-processing. This lack of harmonization makes the inter-comparison of studies difficult, and leads to screening methods that can be arbitrary or case-specific. This study [...]
Too many streams and not enough time or money? Analytical depletion functions for streamflow depletion estimates
Published: 2022-11-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Groundwater pumping can cause streamflow depletion by reducing groundwater discharge to streams and/or inducing surface water infiltration. Analytical and numerical models are two standard methods used to predict streamflow depletion. Numerical models require extensive data and efforts to develop robust estimates, while analytical models are easy to implement with low data and experience [...]
The Importance of Internal Climate Variability in Climate Impact Projections
Published: 2022-10-28
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies
Uncertainty in climate projections is driven by three components: scenario uncertainty, inter-model uncertainty, and internal variability. Although socioeconomic climate impact studies increasingly take into account the first two components, little attention has been paid to the role of internal variability, though underestimating this uncertainty may lead to underestimating the socioeconomic [...]
Short Communication: The Wasserstein distance as a dissimilarity metric for comparing detrital age spectra, and other geological distributions
Published: 2022-10-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Distributional data such as detrital age populations or grain size distributions are common in the geological sciences. As analytical techniques become more sophisticated, increasingly large amounts of distributional data are being gathered. These advances require quantitative and objective methods, such as multidimensional scaling (MDS), to analyse large numbers of samples. Crucial to such [...]
Fisher Discriminant Analysis for Extracting Interpretable Phenological Information from Multivariate Time Series Data
Published: 2022-10-24
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Remote Sensing
For many applications in environmental remote sensing, the interpretation of a given measurement depends strongly on what time of year the measurement was taken. This is particularly the case for phenology studies concerned with identifying when plant developmental transitions occur, but it is also true for a wide range of applications including vegetation species classification, crop yield [...]
Air Quality-Related Equity Implications of U.S. Decarbonization Policy
Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
We quantify potential air pollution exposure reductions resulting from U.S. federal carbon policy, and consider the implications of resulting health benefits for exposure disparities across racial/ethnic groups. We assess reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 50% in 2030 relative to 2005 levels, comparable in magnitude to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Using energy-economic scenarios [...]
Plastics Pollution and the Planetary Boundaries framework
Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies
Plastics are novel entities that have exceeded the planetary safe operating space due to extensive and resource-intensive production, uncontrolled environmental releases, and failure to control the chemicals within the materials. This paper examines evidence and discusses how plastics pollution affects Earth-system processes along the impact pathway from production, to release, to environmental [...]