Preprints
There are 5725 Preprints listed.
Geospatial Variation in Carbon Accounting of Low-Carbon Hydrogen Production Pathways: Implications for the Inflation Reduction Act
Published: 2023-11-20
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Systems Engineering
Low-carbon hydrogen is considered a key component of global energy system decarbonization strategy. The US Inflation Reduction Act includes incentives in the form of production tax credits for low-carbon hydrogen production, provided the lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity (EI) of hydrogen is below 4 kg CO2e/kg H2. Blue hydrogen or hydrogen produced from natural gas coupled with [...]
Convergence in simulating global soil organic carbon by structurally different models after data assimilation
Published: 2023-11-20
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
The current generation of biogeochemical models produce large uncertainty in carbon-climate feedback projections. Structural differences in these models have been identified as a major source of inter-model uncertainties when simulating soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics worldwide. However, parameterization could also play a role, particularly when common observational data are used to constrain [...]
Advancing hydrological monitoring using image-based techniques: challenges and opportunities
Published: 2023-11-17
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Enhanced and effective hydrological monitoring plays a crucial role in understanding water-related processes in a rapidly changing world. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities associated with image-based hydrological monitoring techniques, and highlights the need for innovative approaches and technologies to overcome existing limitations. Image-based hydrological monitoring has [...]
Köppen Geiger climatic classification for R users.
Published: 2023-11-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Here we introduce an R version of the Matlab function from Beck et al. (2018), designed to classify monthly temperature and precipitation data according to Köppen Geiger climate classification. As professionals working in Macroecology or Biogeography usually use R as their main programming language, we believe this will be extremely useful for the work of these scientific communities.
Evidence that seismic anisotropy captures upstream palaeo ice fabric: Implications on present day deformation at Whillans Ice Stream, Antarctica
Published: 2023-11-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding deformation and slip at ice streams, which are responsible for 90% of Antarctic ice loss, is vital for accurately modelling large-scale ice flow. Ice crystal orientation fabric (COF) has a first-order effect on ice stream deformation. For the first time, we use shear-wave splitting (SWS) measurements of basal icequakes at Whillans Ice Stream (WIS), Antarctica, to determine a [...]
Wildfires increasingly threaten oil and gas wells in the western United States with disproportionate impacts on marginalized populations
Published: 2023-11-15
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oil, Gas, and Energy
The western United States is home to most of the nation’s oil and gas production and, increasingly, wildfires. We examined historical threats of wildfires for oil and gas wells, the extent to which wildfires are projected to threaten wells as climate change progresses, and exposure of human populations to these wells. From 1984–2019, we found that cumulatively 102,882 wells were [...]
Downsystem Grain-Size Trends and Mass Balance of an Ancient Wave-Influenced Sediment Routing System: Middle Jurassic Brent Delta, Northern North Sea, Offshore UK and Norway
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
We reconstruct upsystem-to-downsystem grain-size variations in the sediment routing systems of the data-rich Middle Jurassic Brent Group of the northern North Sea, using published stratigraphic, thickness, palaeogeographic, provenance and age constraints combined with representative core and wireline-log data. Facies associations provide a textural proxy for gravel, sand and mud grain-size [...]
Plastics aplenty in paddy lands: incidence of microplastics in two rice cultivars of Kerala, India, and its impact on primary producers found in paddy fields
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Toxicology
Microplastics (MP) have received worldwide attention in recent years because of its prevalence in key ecosystems, including agroecosystems. Occurrence of MP in native paddy fields, which are critical to world’s food security, is not reported till date. This study reports the abundance of MP in two different rice cultivars, one of which is the ‘Pokkali’ crop that is Geographical Indication tagged [...]
Helium, carbon and nitrogen isotope evidence for slab influence on volcanic gas emissions at Rabaul caldera, Papua New Guinea
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
The chemical and isotopic composition of the gases emitted by subduction zone volcanoes can provide insights into the origin of magmatic volatiles. In volcanic arcs, magmatic volatiles and therefore emitted gases can be supplied from the mantle, the subducting slab, or the rocks of the arc crust. Determining the relative contributions of these distinct sources is important for understanding the [...]
Leveraging Past Information and Machine Learning to Accelerate Land Disturbance Monitoring
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Engineering
Near real time (NRT) monitoring of land disturbances holds great importance for delivering emergency aids, mitigating negative social and ecological impacts, and distributing resources for disaster recovery. Many past NRT techniques were built upon examining the overall change magnitude of a spectral anomaly with a pre-defined threshold, namely the unsupervised approach. However, their lack of [...]
Looking upstream: analyzing the protection of the drainage area of Amazon rivers
Published: 2023-11-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
In the Amazon, aquatic ecosystems provide essential ecosystem services, including transportation, food, and livelihoods for millions of species. Land use changes and management impact these ecosystem services, and these impacts are not limited to the specific areas where they occur but propagate downstream along the drainage network. However, assessment of the accumulated human footprint upstream [...]
Probabilistic assimilation of optical satellite data with physiologically based growth functions improves crop trait time series reconstruction
Published: 2023-11-13
Subjects: Agriculture
A sound understanding of plant growth is critical to maintaining future crop productivity under ongoing climate change. Remotely sensed time series of crop functional traits from optical satellite imagery are an invaluable tool for deriving appropriate management practices that facilitate risk mitigation and increase the resilience of agroecosystems. However, the availability of imagery is [...]
Changing Landscapes in a Changing Climate: An Opportunity for Invasive Plants to Create a New Proxy for Recent Landslide Events
Published: 2023-11-11
Subjects: Education
The objective of this short communication is to review the impact resulting from climate change modifications in the landscape on the growth of invasive plant species within the Western Ghats region, with a specific emphasis on the state of Kerala in India. The study highlights the correlation between intense precipitation events and the frequency of landslides, which in turn facilitates ideal [...]
Bad science and good intentions prevent effective climate action
Published: 2023-11-10
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Although the 2015 Paris Agreement climate targets seem certain to be missed, only a few experts are questioning the adequacy of the current approach to limiting climate change and suggesting that additional approaches are needed to avoid unacceptable catastrophes. This article posits that selective science communication and unrealistically optimistic assumptions are obscuring the reality that [...]
In-situ quantification of carbonate species concentrations, pH and pCO2 in calcite fluid inclusions using confocal Raman spectroscopy.
Published: 2023-11-10
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Carbonate minerals are globally distributed on the modern and ancient Earth and are abundant in terrestrial and marine depositional environments. Fluid inclusions hosted by calcite retain primary signatures of the source fluid geochemistry at the time of mineral formation (i.e., pCO2) and can be used to reconstruct paleoenvironments. Confocal laser Raman spectroscopy provides a quick, [...]