Preprints
There are 5079 Preprints listed.
Desiccation of ecosystem-critical microbialites in the shrinking Great Salt Lake, Utah (USA)
Published: 2023-02-08
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Great Salt Lake hosts an ecosystem that is critical to migratory birds and international aquaculture, yet it is currently threatened by falling lake elevation and high lakewater salinity resulting from water diversions in the upstream watershed and the enduring megadrought in the western United States. Microbialite reefs underpin the ecosystem, hosting a surface microbial community that is [...]
Sand Shoal Dynamics of a Tide-Dominated Estuarine Embayment: Comparison of a Numerical Sediment Transport Model against Field Observations
Published: 2023-02-07
Subjects: Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Oceanography
This paper presents an innovative and detailed dataset of currents and sediment transport observations over a sand shoal system responsible for focusing wave energy on eroding coastline. The data are used to measure the performance of a detailed numerical sediment transport model of the sand shoal system. The predictive skill of the model is 0.96 for tidal elevations within Port Phillip Bay, 0.75 [...]
Has the impact of the Earth’s orbital variation at sub-myriadal timescales been underestimated?
Published: 2023-02-07
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
It is well established that the Earth’s long-term orbital variation affects global climate through insolation changes, particularly with respect to glacial cycles. However, there is little research into the impact of this slowly varying insolation forcing on timescales well below the smallest main periodicity, the precession, of ~ 21,000 years. Here, intermediate complexity climate modelling [...]
Clumped isotopes in globally distributed Holocene coccoliths reveal their habitat depth
Published: 2023-02-06
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Reliable temperature reconstructions are necessary to improve climate reconstructions and comparisons with paleoclimate model simulations. Most existing paleotemperature proxies are based on organic and inorganic remains of marine organisms. Despite the evidence that the habitat depth of coccolithophores and other phytoplankton depend on their ability to balance light, nutrients, and grazing [...]
THE DYNAMICS OF SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS: AN ARCHETYPE FOR TRANSFORMATION
Published: 2023-02-05
Subjects: Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Significant global sustainability challenges include among others, energy, climate, and sanitation. Previous Sustainability Transition research has attempted to understand transformation complexity and interdependence, primarily through single-case methodological studies or large-scale analytical frameworks such as the Multi-Level Perspective. This leaves a knowledge gap on common dynamics [...]
Future Temperature Related Deaths in the U.S.: The Impact of Climate Change, Demographics, and Adaptation
Published: 2023-02-05
Subjects: Environmental Public Health
Mortality due to extreme temperatures is one of the most important impacts of climate change. In this analysis, we use historic mortality and temperature data from 106 cities in the United States to develop a model that predicts deaths attributable to temperature. With this model and projections of future temperature from climate models, we estimate temperature-related deaths in the United States [...]
Reading the sediment archive of the Eastern Campeche Bank (southern Gulf of Mexico): From the aftermath of the Chicxulub impact to Loop Current variability
Published: 2023-02-04
Subjects: Life Sciences
This is the first high-resolution seismic study showing how the Chicxulub impact shaped the eastern slope of the Campeche Bank in the south-eastern Gulf of Mexico. The induced shock wave fractured Cretaceous strata causing the collapse of the upper slope and shelf over a length of ca. 200 km. Failed material was either transported downslope or remained in parts on the accommodation space created [...]
Environmental DNA (eDNA) based fish biodiversity assessment of two Himalayan rivers of Nepal reveals diversity differences and highlights new species distribution records
Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Biodiversity
Although over 180 freshwater fish species have been reported from Nepal, little is known of their ecology and distribution. This information is needed because their diversity may be threatened by developments like hydropower constructions. We conducted Nepal’s first environmental DNA (eDNA) based fish biodiversity assessment in two major river systems- Karnali River (KR), which is still [...]
Internal gravity waves generated by subglacial discharge: implications for tidewater glacier melt
Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography
Submarine melting has been implicated in the accelerated retreat of marine-terminating glaciers globally. Energetic ocean flows, such as subglacial discharge plumes, are known to enhance submarine melting in their immediate vicinity. Using observations and a large eddy simulation, we demonstrate that discharge plumes emit high-frequency internal gravity waves that propagate along glacier termini [...]
A Comparison of Contemporaneous Airborne Altimetry and Ice-Thickness Measurements of Antarctic Ice Shelves
Published: 2023-02-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Estimates of ice shelf mass loss are typically based on surface height measurements, assuming hydrostatic equilibrium and estimated firn thickness. Recent investigations, however, challenge the assumption that ice shelves are freely floating, particularly in proximity to narrow structures such as basal channels and shear margins. We compare contemporaneous measurements of Antarctic ice shelf [...]
Evaluating large-domain, hecto-meter, large-eddy simulations of trade-wind clouds using EUREC4A data
Published: 2023-02-02
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The meso-scale variability in cloudiness of the marine trade-wind layer is explored with large-eddy simulations of regional extent and validated against observations of the EUREC4A field campaign. 41 days of realistically forced simulations present a representative, sta- tistical view on shallow convection in the winter North Atlantic trades that includes a wide range of meso-scale variability [...]
Under-ice and open-water ecosystem metabolism in temperate water bodies
Published: 2023-02-01
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Winter, historically a largely un-monitored season, is influential and changing. There is evidence of the importance of under-ice phytoplankton in temperate lakes, but it is currently unknown if high winter phytoplankton biomass translates to high productivity and what influence it has on year-round lake metabolism. Winters are getting shorter, but our ability to forecast change is hindered by [...]
A new mechanism for brittle failure in garnets
Published: 2023-02-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Garnet is a high-strength mineral and preserves structures that can consequently be used to understand the flow strength and evolution of stress within the lower crust. Yet, the deformation mechanisms at the brittle¬-ductile transition of garnet remain ambiguous. Here, we study garnet porphyroclasts from an eclogite facies mylonite (central Australia) to investigate the mechanisms by which garnet [...]
On the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of Argillaceous hard soils - weak rocks
Published: 2023-01-31
Subjects: Engineering
Analysis and interpretation of the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) behaviour of argillaceous rocks is still among the most challenging of problems in geomechanical engineering. The comprehensive review of this wide variety of this class of materials has shown how different geotechnical parameters play various roles in the assessment of deep geological repository of high- and intermediate-level [...]
Revealing the hillslope response to earthquake legacy effect using time series InSAR
Published: 2023-01-31
Subjects: Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences
Strong earthquakes are not only able to change the earth's surface processes by triggering a large population of coseismic landslides but also by influencing hillslope deformation rates in post-seismic periods. An increase in post-seismic hillslope deformation rates could also be linked to a change in post-seismic landslide hazard level and, thus, could be exploited to better assess post-seismic [...]