Preprints
There are 7525 Preprints listed.
A comprehensive evaluation of inland water quality monitoring using the long-term Landsat archive and mixture density networks
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
Nutrient enrichment of inland and coastal waters is visible from space. In these regions, chlorophyll a (chl-a), total suspended solids (TSS), and Secchi depth (ZSD) constitute the most commonly targeted water quality parameters. A growing number of studies have shown that, despite not being strictly optically active, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) can nonetheless be estimated from [...]
Soil Seed Banks of Invasive Plant Species of the Lower Mississippi River Delta
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
Corresponding Author Beth A. Middleton; Email: middletonb@usgs.gov This paper this is a non-peer reviewed preprint submitted to EarthArXiv, and is submitted to PLoS One (in review). Abstract The invasion routes of non-native species into estuaries can be difficult to determine. Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is an invasive species in North America and occurs sporadically in the remote [...]
Trigger or driver? Tracing the role of climate variability since the Little Ice Age in the abandonment of mountain villages in the Eastern Pyrenees: evidence from historical documents
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Environmental Studies
In recent decades, rural depopulation has emerged as a widespread phenomenon across much of Europe, driven by shared underlying processes but shaped by region-specific dynamics. Understanding how climate variability interacts with socioeconomic dynamics to drive long-term settlement abandonment is critical in the context of current global change. High-mountain regions are particularly sensitive [...]
Recurrent High-Resolution Satellite Observations Quantify Facility-Resolved Annual Large-Emitter Methane Emissions in the Permian Basin
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Repeated high-resolution satellite observations can identify large methane emissions from individual oil and gas facilities, but sparse sampling, intermittent emissions, and variable observation conditions complicate the estimation of annual facility-level emissions. We develop an empirical hierarchical Bayesian method to estimate facility-resolved annual large-emitter methane emissions, with [...]
Quantifying Uncertainty in Climate Sensitivity Metrics Using Large Ensemble Observational Datasets
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Gridded surface temperature observational datasets are an important line of evidence for estimating climate sensitivity metrics. Climate sensitivity metrics are often derived from comparing historical warming in these observations against climate model simulations, an approach that is known to be sensitive to the choice of observational dataset. With observational products now providing large [...]
A coordinated NASA observing system for monitoring the next decade of ice sheet-climate interactions
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Sea level rise is a global problem that is currently shrouded in uncertainty. The next decade of NASA research priorities must address key unknowns and monitor ongoing changes in the ice sheet-ocean system in order to improve sea level rise projections and equip government officials to legislate the appropriate policies. This will require a coordinated observing system that combines satellite [...]
Effect of the interfacial continuity on the elastic full-waveform inversion
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Full-waveform inversion (FWI) routinely assumes welded interfaces between subsurface layers, yet many geological and engineering targets including karst cavities, fractures, and unbonded soil-structure contacts exhibit interfacial slip. We show that this modelling assumption is not merely a geometric detail but introduces a systematic bias in the recovered physical parameters. Using a [...]
The 26 August 2026 Langtang Lirung ice–rock avalanche and its transboundary cascade: a multi-source observational reconstruction in the Bhote Koshi basin
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology
On 26 August 2026, an ice–rock avalanche detached from the northern flank of Langtang Lirung (7,227 m) at about 5,200 m a.s.l., transformed into a debris flow that travelled roughly 22 km in 6–7 minutes, destroyed the Gyirong border port (China) and dammed the river; a flood then propagated a reported ~170 km down the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli–Narayani system into Nepal and India. At least 16 people [...]
Megathrust Earthquakes Amplify Coastal Wave Hazards in Cascadia Under Rising Sea Levels
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, destructive megathrust earthquakes represent a significant coastal hazard. These events generate abrupt, meter-scale coseismic subsidence, instantaneously increasing relative sea level, inundation extent, and the reach of ocean waves. In the coming decades, eustatic sea level rise will continue to shift baseline coastal conditions, with the potential to change [...]
Structural and dynamical properties of hydrous magmatic liquids at high pressure: insights from Raman spectroscopy observations during diamond anvil cell experiments
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Silicate liquids play a central role in the differentiation and internal dynamics of terrestrial planets by controlling the transport of heat and matter. One of their key properties is viscosity, which can be strongly influenced by pressure. Currently, there is not enough data to develop general models of viscosity at high pressure. Besides, data on the short and medium range order structure of [...]
The long-term persistence of microbial biospheres introduces a temporal bias into the Drake equation: implications for the search for extraterrestrial life
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Drake equation was designed to estimate the number of communicative technological civilisations, not the prevalence of life. Its lifetime term therefore describes a detectable technological phase that may represent only a small part of a planet’s biological history. This emphasis introduces a temporal bias when Drake-style reasoning is extended from technological civilisations to life more [...]
Landslide Susceptibility Modelling and Infrastructure Exposure in the Zillertal, Austrian Alps
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science
Landslides are a major threat in alpine regions, as steep terrain, complex geology and locally concentrated infrastructure increase societal exposure to landslide hazards. This study develops a landslide susceptibility model for the Zillertal (Tyrol, Austria), utilizing a Random Forest modelling approach. A high-resolution landslide susceptibility map was created using seven geomorphometric, [...]
Assessing the Impact of Invasive Trapa natans on Freshwater Microbial Communities in Collins Lake, New York
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
Trapa natans, or water chestnut, is an invasive aquatic plant that disrupts the balance of aquatic ecosystems and upsets the equilibrium of the microbial community it inhabits. This study aims to assess the impacts of water chestnuts on the microbial communities and the overall health of Collins Lake. We hypothesized that the microbial integrity would be different in both the aquatic and benthic [...]
Global limits on CO2 geological storage deployment using a coupled industry growth - pressure constrained model
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Geology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Geological storage of CO2 at scale is critical to meeting climate objectives, yet deployment targets often rely on top-down climate pathways that overlook the coupled constraints of subsurface pressure buildup and realistic industry drilling rates. Here we map global limits on CO2 storage deployment using CO2LOGIX 2.0, an improved model coupling subsurface pressure evolution with country-level [...]
The four-vector potential of equatorial shallow water waves from Hamilton’s principle
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Linear shallow water waves on an equatorial β-plane can be represented as the states of a charged particle minimally coupled to a four-vector potential whose analogue magnetic field is uniform and proportional to β/c_g. There the potential is written down and verified rather than derived. We show that it need not be assumed. In the Eulerian variational principle for rotating flow the Coriolis [...]