Preprints
There are 7634 Preprints listed.
A Formal Framework for Measuring Institutional Collapse under a Nuclear Winter Scenario
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
A medium-scale regional nuclear exchange could plausibly loft ~16 Teragrams (16 * 10¹² grams, Tg) of soot into the stratosphere, sufficient to reduce conventional agricultural output past the ~30% threshold at which large-scale starvation emerges. Alternative food-production methods could restore sufficient caloric supply in the United States, but scaling them to ~70% of pre-shock capacity [...]
Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Urban Expansion in Awka and its Environs, Nigeria Using Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery and Google Earth Engine (2021 to 2026)
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Abstract Rapid urbanization in secondary administrative and educational hubs across sub-Saharan Africa presents significant challenges for regional planning, infrastructure development, and sustainable resource allocation. This study evaluates the spatio-temporal dynamics of urban expansion in Awka and its environs Anambra State, Nigeria, between 2021 and 2026 using cloud-based remote sensing [...]
Critical mineral pathfinder targeting in the Aravalli basement (northwest India) calibrated against age and tectonically-matched Western Australian analogues using the AuScope EarthBank platform
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Critical mineral element fingerprints established in Australian regional geochemistry could accelerate exploration in geologically comparable but less-characterised terranes of north-west India, provided that a defensible basis for comparison can be established. We present a drainage-based method for identifying age and tectonically-matched Australian analogues for north-west Indian [...]
Evaluations of Climate-Informed Early Warning Systems for Foodborne, Waterborne, and Vector-Borne Diseases: A Scoping Review
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Public Health
Climate change is altering infectious disease risk over time and across geographies. These changing risks can negatively impact human health and pose challenges to health systems. Anticipating outbreaks before they happen and implementing adaptive measures can help reduce the burden of climate-sensitive infectious diseases. Climate-informed early warning systems (CIEWS) are integrated systems of [...]
Global isotopic proxy records for Ordovician temperature reconstruction
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The Ordovician represents a critical interval in the Phanerozoic, marked by two profound biological events: the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE), with an unprecedented tenfold increase in marine species diversity, which was abruptly terminated by the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME), one of the most severe extinction events in Earth's history, wiping out approximately 85% of [...]
Mitigating Summertime Marine Heatwaves via Targeted Marine Cloud Brightening
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) negatively impact marine ecosystems and coastal economies. Here, we evaluate whether a preemptive, short-term, localized surface emission of sea salt aerosols (marine cloud brightening, MCB) can mitigate the impacts of a predicted MHW without creating significant effects beyond the intervention zone. As a case study, we apply MCB to the 2019 Northeast Pacific MHW, "The [...]
Comparing the effect of organic matter quality on aerobic and anaerobic greenhouse gas production in a temperate peatland
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Peatlands have an outsized contribution to both carbon storage and methane (CH4) emissions relative to their land surface area. The factors controlling these fluxes are uncertain, but critical to predicting the future trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands. While the biochemical composition of organic matter (termed organic matter “quality”) has been shown to be correlated with its [...]
Rapid declines in UK PM2.5 reflect coordinated reductions in regional nitrate and continental influence
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a major environmental risk factor for premature mortality globally. Although PM2.5 concentrations have declined across Europe since the 1990s, recent progress has shown signs of slowing, raising concerns over the achievability of increasingly stringent ambient air quality targets. Ambient PM2.5 concentrations across the UK underwent a rapid and sustained decline [...]
Coral connectivity: How biophysical modelling choices shape connectivity inference
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding coral connectivity is essential for predicting metapopulation dynamics and guiding restoration under accelerating climate change. Connectivity facilitates the exchange of organisms among reefs and can promote recovery following disturbance. Biophysical models are widely used to predict and explore coral connectivity; however, their estimates carry substantial uncertainty arising [...]
Soil organic carbon change in UK mineral and organo-mineral soils since 2000: a systematic evidence map and critical narrative synthesis
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Soil Science
Soil organic carbon is increasingly embedded in United Kingdom climate and land-use policy, yet the empirical basis for estimating its long-term change in mineral and organo-mineral soils remains uncertain. We conducted a systematic evidence map and critical narrative synthesis of peer-reviewed and grey literature published between 2000 and 2025 to evaluate soil organic carbon stocks and changes [...]
Efficient measurement of marine sedimentary porewater pH and oxygen concentrations using optical sensors
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Porewater oxygen concentrations and pH exert substantial influence on sediment diagenesis and potentially towards the reliability of palaeoceanographic records. However, these fundamental chemical parameters are not systematically measured during sea-going expeditions. This study presents an easy, inexpensive and effective method to measure marine sediment porewater oxygen and pH levels using [...]
Phanerozoic atmosphere and ocean conditions estimated by a continuous climate and multi-box ocean model
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Geochemistry, Other Earth Sciences
The Phanerozoic Eon has witnessed marked fluctuations in Earth’s climate and the concentrations of elements conducive to life. Understanding what has driven these changes to the Earth system over such a long timeframe has traditionally used ‘box models’ which split the Earth into a small number of chemical reservoirs, with many models utilising a single, combined ocean-atmosphere reservoir. This [...]
Inside the Extinction Envelope: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis of Paleoclimate Extinction Markers with Comments on the Necessary Array of Last-Threshold Interventions
Published: 2026-09-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Every element of the causal chain that produced the five largest mass extinctions of the last half-billion years is presently active in the Earth system. The rate of the modern perturbation exceeds every peer-reviewed paleoclimate reference case. A six-intervention portfolio, deployed together at wartime industrial scale beginning now, is the physically necessary and sufficient response. The [...]
Surface-wave sensitivity to anisotropy in a 3D seismogeodynamics mantle plume model.
Published: 2026-09-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology
High-resolution anisotropic seismic images of the upper mantle provide fundamental constraints on mantle plume dynamics and mantle deformation. Seismic tomography has come far by using travel-time and waveform (phase) information but has exploited amplitude information only to a limited extent. Here, we calculate adjoint sensitivity kernels to assess the value of incorporating amplitude [...]
Spatial Coupling of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Vegetation Activity, Groundwater Nitrate Occurrence, and Soil Environments Across Denmark: A 5-km Spatial Association and Soil-Stratified Analysis
Published: 2026-09-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Integrated environmental assessment increasingly requires the joint analysis of atmospheric emissions, vegetation dynamics, groundwater quality, and soil context rather than isolated thematic mapping. We developed a Denmark-wide 5-km analytical grid in EPSG:25832 containing 1,803 cells and harmonized four continuous environmental indicators: CO2 and CH4 emissions from EDGAR, vegetation activity [...]