Preprints
There are 7095 Preprints listed.
Seeing Cities in Depth: Subsurface Urban Expansion and the Case for Volumetric Monitoring and Accountability
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Urban science can measure surface and aboveground change with increasing precision. Satellites, building-footprint datasets, and emerging three-dimensional products now track urban land, building height, and built volume. Yet these tools still struggle to capture urbanization below ground. This Perspective defines subsurface urban expansion as the extension of urbanization below the local ground [...]
A Rotating Air-Ring Model for Atmospheric Vortices and a Peripheral Drag Concept for Tornado Mitigation
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This study introduces Latent Angular Momentum (LAM) as a heuristic parameter for understanding the intensification of rotating atmospheric vortices. Using a simplified air-ring model based on the conservation of angular momentum, we derive an analytical expression for tangential wind speed as a function of radial contraction and latitude. Model predictions yield physically plausible initial radii [...]
Carbon Dioxide Removal Supply Curves: A Multi-Model Assessment
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Other Environmental Sciences
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is widely recognised as essential for pathways consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement. Yet the cost-dependent potential of CDR options, given resource competition, remains uncertain. Here we present CDR-supply curves assessing a range of CDR options across carbon price levels using five Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) for 2035, 2050 and 2100. At 400 (200) $ [...]
Dress Rehearsal: 2023 El Niño Anticipatory Action Somalia, in the Shadow of 1997
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Meteorology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography
In 2023 Somalia saw the largest-ever scale of anticipatory action (AA) linked to a seasonal forecast. $24m was spent on preparedness and early response, based on forecasted flooding driven by El Niño and a positiveIn 2023 Somalia saw the largest-ever scale of anticipatory action (AA) linked to a seasonal forecast. $24m was spent on preparedness and early response, based on forecasted flooding [...]
Mangrove Loss and Growing Coastal Flood Exposure in East Malaysia: A Multi-Decadal Analysis with Sea Level Rise Projections
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Mangrove forests provide critical coastal flood protection, yet their ongoing loss in combination with sea level rise creates a compounding exposure dynamic that remains poorly quantified at sub-national scale across Southeast Asia. This study presents the first systematic, multi-decadal analysis of mangrove loss and coastal flood exposure change for the 10 km coastal buffer of East Malaysia [...]
When the Comparison Is the Problem: Spatial Resolution and Validation Bias in InSAR-Derived Coastal Subsidence Assessments Along the U.S. Gulf Coast
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Engineering
Li et al. (2026) compare two InSAR-derived surface-elevation change datasets for the central U.S. Gulf Coast and conclude that InSAR is unreliable in vegetated coastal settings for rates below 5 mm/yr. While InSAR reproducibility is a timely and consequential question, we demonstrate that the paper's principal conclusions rest on three methodological decisions that critically undermine the [...]
A satellite-monitoring research agenda for urban stormwater infrastructure: capabilities, gaps, and a community-benchmark proposal
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology
Urban stormwater best management practices (BMPs) are a core component of urban-resilience portfolios worldwide. Per-asset performance monitoring, however, is both limited and difficult to enumerate at the global scale. We argue that publicly available satellite Earth observation has reached the capability point at which the resulting accountability gap can be closed at portfolio scale, and that [...]
Subsurface advective flow unveils the architecture of Earth’s crustal biosphere
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Geology, Microbiology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
The subsurface biosphere is one of Earth’s largest microbial reservoirs, yet its spatial extent remains poorly constrained due to limited direct access. Here we propose using the integrated environmental readouts encoded in deep subsurface fluids to shift from simply mapping where life can be detected to constraining where life can exist. Deeply-sourced advective fluids provide an integrated [...]
A Unified Treatment of SKS Splitting and Surface-Wave Anisotropy for Media with Arbitrary Elastic Symmetry
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Observations of SKS splitting and surface-wave azimuthal anisotropy are two of the primary geophysical constraints on crust and upper-mantle anisotropy, yet the two methods often yield apparently inconsistent inferences about the strength and vertical extent of anisotropy. Here we show that neglecting anisotropy parameters associated with Rayleigh-Love coupling is an important and largely [...]
High-resolution pavement material data can improve estimates of water supply from precipitation to street trees
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Impervious surfaces in urban landscapes strongly influence how precipitation supplies water to trees. Most data on imperviousness are satellite derived restricting our ability to analyze impacts of imperviousness at the scale of single tree catchments: the area covering tree roots. To address this challenge, we compiled a high-resolution dataset for Berlin, Germany, that specifies pavement [...]
Effects of loading schemes in volumetric simulations of sequences of earthquakes and aseismic slip (SEAS) in subduction zones
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
State-of-the-art simulations of sequences of earthquakes and aseismic slip (SEAS) require realistic loading conditions and physics-based constitutive laws to produce the full spectrum of fault slip. Previous studies have shown that loading schemes may affect long-term system behavior, including earthquake recurrence intervals. However, the effects of loading schemes on rupture characteristics and [...]
Coseismic uplift as strandplain-building mechanism: morphodynamic and stratigraphic evidence from the 2010 Maule earthquake, south-central Chile
Published: 2026-06-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Tectonics and Structure
Coseismic uplift along convergent margins drives rapid coastal progradation, yet its short-term morpho-stratigraphic response remains poorly documented at human timescales. Here we integrate four complementary high-resolution proxies: satellite-derived shorelines, multi-temporal mapping of the seaward dune vegetation line (SVDL), ground-penetrating radar stratigraphy, and UAV–LiDAR topographic [...]
Detection, Classification, and Characterization of Compound Coastal Flooding along the Gulf and Southeastern U.S. Coasts
Published: 2026-06-08
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Compound coastal flooding, driven by the concurrent or sequential exceedance of storm surge and river discharge thresholds, poses disproportionate risk to Gulf and Southeast US coastal communities, yet systematic observation-based characterization of its spatial distribution, typological structure, and joint intensity remains limited. This study investigates compound coastal flooding using a [...]
Simulations of Minnesota water budget components using the Soil-Water-Balance model, past (1981–2022) and future (2040–59 and 2080–99)
Published: 2026-06-08
Subjects: Climate, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
This study presents historical estimates and future projections of net infiltration (potential recharge), actual evapotranspiration (ET), surface runoff, and related water budget components across Minnesota using the USGS Soil Water Balance model, version 2 (SWB). The model was calibrated to streamflow and actual ET observations from 2000–2022, achieving an overall r² of 0.973 with a standard [...]
Surface Infrared Forcing as a Primary Driver of Contemporary Global Warming: A Synthesis of Biophysical, Spectral, and Land-Use Evidence
Published: 2026-06-08
Subjects: Life Sciences
The prevailing attribution of observed global warming to the radiative forcing of well-mixed greenhouse gases — principally CO₂ — rests on a framework that systematically underrepresents a class of forcings operating at the land-atmosphere interface. This paper synthesises evidence from satellite remote sensing (Duveiller et al., 2018), planetary biomass accounting (Erb et al., 2018), [...]