Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Effect of Formation Processes on The Frequency of Palaeolithic Cave Sites in Semi-Arid Zones: Insights From Kazakhstan

Aristeidis Varis, Christopher Miller, Patrick Cuthbertson, et al.

Published: 2021-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Speleology, Stratigraphy

Central Asian caves with Palaeolithic deposits are few but they provide a rich record of human fossils and cultural assemblages that has been used to model Late Pleistocene hominin dispersals. However, previous research has not yet systematically evaluated the formation processes that influence the frequency of Palaeolithic cave sites in the region. To address this deficiency, we combined field [...]

Safety and Belonging in the Field: A Checklist for Educators

Sarah E Greene, Gawain T. Antell, Jake Atterby, et al.

Published: 2021-08-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Higher Education, Human Geography, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Meteorology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Planetary Sciences, Outdoor Education, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences, Planetary Sedimentology, Remote Sensing, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Spatial Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management

Ensuring taught fieldwork is a positive, generative, collective, and valuable experience for all participants requires considerations beyond course content. To guarantee safety and belonging, participants’ identities (backgrounds and protected characteristics) must be considered as a part of fieldwork planning and implementation. Furthermore, getting fieldwork right is an important step in [...]

Projecting long-term armed conflict risk: an underappreciated field of inquiry?

Sophie Pieternel de Bruin, Jannis Hoch, Nina von Uexkull, et al.

Published: 2021-05-27
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Little research has been done on projecting long-term conflict risks in response to climate change. Such projections are currently neither included in the development of socioeconomic scenarios or climate change impact assessments nor part of global agenda-setting policy processes. In contrast, in other fields of inquiry, long-term projections and scenario studies are established and relevant for [...]

Defining a Sustainable Development Target Space for 2030 and 2050

Detlef van Vuuren, Caroline Zimm, Sebastian Busch, et al.

Published: 2021-05-24
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resource Economics, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability

By adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries worldwide agreed to an agenda for achieving a prosperous, socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable future for all1. This ambition, however, also exposes a critical knowledge gap since science-based insights on how to achieve the 17 SDGs simultaneously are lacking. Quantitative goal-seeking scenario studies could enable [...]

Expert judgements on solar geoengineering research priorities and challenges

Peter James Irvine, Elizabeth Burns, Ken Caldeira, et al.

Published: 2021-04-29
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Solar geoengineering describes a set of proposals to deliberately alter the earth’s radiative balance to reduce climate risks. We elicit judgements on natural science research priorities for solar geoengineering through a survey and in-person discussion with 72 subject matter experts, including two thirds of all scientists with ≥10 publications on the topic. Experts prioritized Earth system [...]

Impact and rebound of near real-time United States fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions from COVID-19 and large differences with global estimates

Kevin Robert Gurney, Bhaskar Mitra, Geoffrey Roest, et al.

Published: 2021-04-20
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally and continues to evolve in the U.S. as the politics of COVID-19 change. Here we report on a new near-real-time fuel consumption data-driven, week-resolved estimate of national U.S. fossil fuel carbon dioxide (FFCO2) emissions, Vulcan-NRT. We explore the impact and rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. [...]

Crisis at the Salton Sea: The Vital Role of Science

Marilyn Fogel, Hoori Ajami, Emma Aronson, et al.

Published: 2021-03-04
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Chemistry, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Salton Sea—a hypersaline, terminal lake in southern California—is in crisis. A combination of mismanagement and competition among federal, state and local agencies has hindered efforts to address declining lake levels and unstable water chemistry. This delay has heightened the public health threat to regional communities as retreating shorelines expose dry lakebed— a source of potentially [...]

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: tackling under-representation and recognition of talents in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry

Olivier Pourret, Pallavi Anand, Sandra Arndt, et al.

Published: 2021-02-25
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Diversity, at every step along the scientific path, drives innovative research. Scientific societies, like the Geochemical Society (GS) and the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG), have a significant influence over which discoveries and innovators are celebrated. Such choices impact the future of research, and therefore influence the evolution of our discipline and its relationship to the [...]

Creating and Promoting Gender Equity and Diversity in Professional Geological Societies: A Focus on AAPG

Rachelle Kernen, Clara Abu, Jonathan Allen, et al.

Published: 2021-02-10
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

When professional organizations allow gender inequity to persist, they continually lose talented, valuable individuals who enrich and lead their groups and drive innovation. This paper presents an analysis of membership data and ways in which member contributions are recognized by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) between 2017-2020, in relation to gender. These are compared [...]

Urban Running Activity Detected Using a Seismic Sensor duringCOVID-19 Pandemic

Yumin Zhao, Yunyue Elita Li, Enhedelihai Nilot, et al.

Published: 2021-01-30
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Human foot traffic in urban environments provides essential information for city planners to manage the urban resources and urban residents to plan their activities. Compared to camera or mobile-based solutions, seismic sensors detect human footstep signals with fewer privacy concerns. However, seismic sensors often record signals generated from multiple sources, particularly in an urban outdoor [...]

Climate change induced effects or maldevelopment: small islands and conflicting attribution of root causes

C. Gabriel David, Arne Hennig, Beate M. W. Ratter, et al.

Published: 2020-12-21
Subjects: Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Adapting to sea level rise, climate change, and associated effects is especially challenging in sensitive small-island environments where false adaptation can lead to adverse impacts on natural and societal dynamics. Framing and interest play a decisive role for the successful implementation of any adaptation measures. An interdisciplinary perspective on the interaction of natural dynamics, [...]

Integrating ecosystem markets to co-ordinate landscape-scale public benefits from nature

Mark S Reed, Tom Curtis, Arjan Gosal, et al.

Published: 2020-12-21
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences

Ecosystem markets are proliferating around the world in response to increasing demand for climate change mitigation and provision of other public goods. However, this may lead to perverse outcomes, for example where public funding crowds out private investment or different schemes create trade-offs between the ecosystem services they each target. The integration of ecosystem markets could address [...]

Given that the Paris Agreement is unlikely to prevent dangerous climate overshoot, an alternative risk management strategy is urgently needed

Graeme MacDonald Taylor, Sue Vink

Published: 2020-12-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Because the 2015 Paris Agreement will not prevent dangerous climate change, there is an urgent need to develop an alternative mitigation strategy. Even if most countries greatly increase their commitments and technological breakthroughs accelerate the transition to emission-free technologies, the 2°C target will still be overshot due to systemic inertia from existing greenhouse gases, warming [...]

Climate change research and action must look beyond 2100

Christopher Lyon, Erin E Saupe, Christopher J Smith, et al.

Published: 2020-12-16
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Anthropogenic activity is changing Earth’s climate and ecosystems in ways that are potentially dangerous and disruptive to humans. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise, ensuring these changes will be felt for centuries beyond 2100, the current benchmark for prediction. Estimating the effects of past, current, and potential future emissions to only 2100 is therefore [...]

Evidence-based conservation in a changing world: lessons from waterbird individual-based models

Sally Brown, Richard A Stillman

Published: 2020-12-16
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Drivers of environmental change are causing novel combinations of pressures on ecological systems. Prediction in ecology often uses understanding of past conditions to make predictions to the future, but such an approach can breakdown when future conditions have not previously been encountered. Individual-based models (IBMs) consider ecological systems as arising from the adaptive behaviour and [...]

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