Preprints
There are 5079 Preprints listed.
Air Quality-Related Equity Implications of U.S. Decarbonization Policy
Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
We quantify potential air pollution exposure reductions resulting from U.S. federal carbon policy, and consider the implications of resulting health benefits for exposure disparities across racial/ethnic groups. We assess reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 50% in 2030 relative to 2005 levels, comparable in magnitude to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Using energy-economic scenarios [...]
Plastics Pollution and the Planetary Boundaries framework
Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies
Plastics are novel entities that have exceeded the planetary safe operating space due to extensive and resource-intensive production, uncontrolled environmental releases, and failure to control the chemicals within the materials. This paper examines evidence and discusses how plastics pollution affects Earth-system processes along the impact pathway from production, to release, to environmental [...]
Advances in understanding subglacial meltwater drainage from past ice sheets
Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Meltwater drainage beneath ice sheets is a fundamental consideration for understanding ice-bed conditions and bed-modulated ice flow, with potential impacts on terminus behavior and ice-shelf mass balance. While contemporary observations reveal the presence of basal water movement in the subglacial environment and inferred styles of drainage, the geological record, including sediments and [...]
Seasonal biodegradation of the artificial sweetener acesulfame enhances its use as a transient wastewater tracer
Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Engineering
The persistence of the artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium (ACE) in wastewater treatment and subsequently in the aquatic environment has made it a widely used marker of wastewater in both surface water and groundwater. However, the recently observed biodegradation of ACE during wastewater treatment has questioned the validity of this application. In this study, we assessed the use of ACE [...]
In Defense of Metrics: Metrics Sufficiently Encode Typical Human Preferences Regarding Hydrological Model Performance
Published: 2022-10-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Building accurate rainfall-runoff models is an integral part of hydrological science and practice. The variety of modeling goals and applications have led to a large suite of evaluation metrics for these models. Yet, hydrologists still put considerable trust into visual judgment, although it is unclear whether such judgment agrees or disagrees with existing quantitative metrics. In this study, we [...]
The impact of Holocene deglaciation and glacial dynamics on the landscapes and geomorphology of Potter Peninsula, King George Island (Isla 25 Mayo), NW Antarctic Peninsula
Published: 2022-10-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The timing and impact of deglaciation and Holocene readvances on the terrestrial continental margins of the Antarctic Peninsula have been well-studied but are still debated. Potter Peninsula on King George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo), South Shetland Islands (SSI), NW Antarctic Peninsula has a detailed assemblage of glacial landforms and stratigraphic exposures for constraining deglacial landscape [...]
Holocene deglaciation and glacier readvances on the Fildes Peninsula and King George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo), South Shetland Islands, NW Antarctic Peninsula
Published: 2022-10-18
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
To provide insights into glacier-climate dynamics of the South Shetland Islands (SSI), NW Antarctic Peninsula, we present a new deglaciation and readvance model for the Bellingshausen Ice Cap (BIC) on Fildes Peninsula and for King George Island/Isla 25 de Mayo (KGI) ~62°S. Deglaciation on KGI began after c. 15 ka cal BP and had progressed to within present-day limits on the Fildes Peninsula, its [...]
Efficient Estimation of Climate State and Its Uncertainty Using Kalman Filtering with Application to Policy Thresholds and Volcanism
Published: 2022-10-18
Subjects: Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Non-linear Dynamics, Planetary Sciences, Statistical Models
We present the Energy Balance Model – Kalman Filter (EBM-KF), a hybrid model projecting and assimilating the global mean surface temperature (GMST) and ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA). It combines an annual energy balance model (difference equations) with 17 parameters drawn from the literature and a statistical Extended Kalman Filter assimilating GMST and OHCA, either observed timeseries or [...]
Fault Friction Derived from Fault Bend Influence on Coseismic Slip During the 2019 Ridgecrest Mw 7.1 Mainshock
Published: 2022-10-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
The variation of stress on faults is important for our understanding of fault friction and the dynamics of earthquake ruptures. However, we still have little observational constraints on their absolute magnitude, or their variations in space and in time over the seismic cycle. Here we use a new geodetic imaging technique to measure the 3D coseismic slip vectors along the 2019 Ridgecrest surface [...]
Planetary Scale Analysis of the Morphology of River Channels and Channel Belt Deposits
Published: 2022-10-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The morphology of a river and its channel belt is in part the product of ecological, hydrological and tectonic processes shaping the terrestrial landscape. River morphology is critical for understanding their physical evolution through time, and in predicting the future behavior of rivers and floods. To date, there is no global-scale, quantitative study of the morphology of rivers and their [...]
Drivers of fire regimes in the Brazilian Amazon from 2011-2020
Published: 2022-10-18
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Over the last decade, carbon emissions due to forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon, linked mainly to logging and wildfires, became larger than carbon emissions due to deforestation. Climatic and ecological processes affect the landscape’s flammability, while socio-economic processes influence the use of fire for deforestation and agricultural land management. However, a comprehensive [...]
North African dust absorbs less solar radiation than estimated by models and remote-sensing retrievals
Published: 2022-10-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate
Desert dust accounts for a large fraction of shortwave radiation absorbed by aerosols, which adds to the climate warming produced by greenhouse gases. However, it remains uncertain exactly how much shortwave radiation dust absorbs. We leverage in-situ measurements of dust single-scattering albedo to constrain absorption at mid-visible wavelength by North African dust, which accounts for [...]
New reference materials, analytical procedures, and data reduction strategies for Sr isotope measurements in geological materials by LA-MC-ICP-MS
Published: 2022-10-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Laser ablation multi-collector mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) has emerged as the technique of choice for in situ measurements of Sr isotopes in geological minerals. However, the method poses analytical challenges and there is no widely adopted standardised approach to collecting these data or correcting the numerous potential isobaric inferences. Here, we outline practical analytical procedures [...]
Dislocation and disclination densities in experimentally deformed polycrystalline olivine
Published: 2022-10-15
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We report a comprehensive dataset characterizing and quantifying the dislocation density in the crystallographic frame (ρ_α^c) and disclination density (ρ_θ) in fine-grained polycrystalline olivine deformed in uniaxial compression or torsion, at 1000 °C and 1200 °C, under a confining pressure of 300 MPa. Finite strains range from 0.11 up to 8.6 % and stresses reach up to 1073 MPa. The data set is [...]
Trait-based modeling revealed higher microbial diversity leads to greater ecological resilience in response to an ecosystem disturbance
Published: 2022-10-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Microbiology, Oceanography, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To quantitatively understand the ecological resilience of an ecosystem with specialized habitats, we focused on deep-sea microbial communities and simulated the response of diverse microbes in specialized habitats to a pulse ecosystem disturbance - the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two microbial communities with equivalent metabolic libraries were acclimated to the presence [...]