Preprints
There are 4720 Preprints listed.
Inverting passive margin stratigraphy for marine sediment transport dynamics over geologic time
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Passive margin stratigraphy contains time-integrated records of landscapes that have long since vanished. Quantitatively reading the stratigraphic record using coupled landscape evolution and stratigraphic forward models (SFMs) is a promising approach to extracting information about landscape history. However, there is no consensus about the optimal form of simple SFMs because there has been a [...]
Scaling relationships for whole-lake primary production
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Scaling relationships provide simple rules for understanding complex ecological patterns. We evaluated scaling relationships between whole-lake (benthic + pelagic) primary production and the surface areas and volumes of 73 lakes. Whole-lake primary production scales isometrically with surface area, after accounting for latitudinal gradients of temperature and insolation. Whole-lake primary [...]
Climate nonlinearities: selection, uncertainty, projections, & damages
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences
\textbf{Abstract:} Climate projections are highly uncertain; this uncertainty is costly and impedes progress on climate policy. This uncertainty is primarily parametric (what numbers do we plug into our equations?) and structural (what equations do we use in the first place?). The former is straightforward to characterise in principle, though may be computationally intensive for complex climate [...]
The size-distribution of Earth’s lakes and ponds: limits to power-law behavior
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Global-scale characterizations of Earth's lakes and ponds assume their surface areas are power-law distributed across the full size range. However, empirical power-laws only hold across finite ranges of scales. In this paper, we synthesize evidence for upper and lower limits to power-law behavior in lake size-distributions. We find support for the power-law assumption in general. We also find [...]
State-dependence of Cenozoic thermal extremes
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Oxygen isotopes in sediments reflect Earth's past temperature, revealing a cooling over the Cenozoic punctuated by multimillenial thermal extreme events. These extremes are captured by the generalized extreme value distribution, and the distribution's shape changes with baseline temperature such that large thermal extremes are more likely in warmer climates. Anthropogenic warming has the [...]
The relationship between lake surface area and maximum depth
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Maximum depth varies among lakes from $<$1 to 1741 meters, but attempts to explain this variation have achieved little predictive power. In this paper, we describe the probability distribution of maximum depths based on recent developments in the theory of fractal Brownian motions. The theoretical distribution is right-tailed and adequately captures variations in maximum depth in a dataset of [...]
Geodynamics of continental rift initiation and evolution
Published: 2022-03-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
A rift is a nascent plate boundary where continental lithosphere is extended and possibly broken. In the geologic past, rifting played a major role in shaping the surface of our planet, while at present, continental rifts are of societal relevance by hosting key georesources such as geothermal energy and ore deposits. This Review discusses fundamental rift processes, geodynamic forces and their [...]
Causing of missing snowmelt following drought
Published: 2022-03-05
Subjects: Water Resource Management
Water management in snowy mountainous regions hinges on forecasting snowmelt runoff. However, droughts are altering snowpack-runoff relationships with ongoing debate about the driving mechanisms. For example, in 2021 in California, less than half of predicted streamflow arrived. Mechanisms proposed for this `missing' streamflow included changes in evapotranspiration, rainfall, and subsurface [...]
Magma chamber detected beneath an arc volcano with high-resolution velocity images
Published: 2022-03-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Volcanology
Arc volcanoes are underlain by complex systems of molten-rock reservoirs ranging from melt-poor mush zones to melt-rich magma chambers. Petrological and satellite data indicate that eruptible magma chambers form in the topmost few kilometres of the crust. However, very few chambers have ever been definitively located, suggesting that most are too short-lived or too small to be imaged, which has [...]
Climate control on the relationship between erosion rate and fluvial topography
Published: 2022-03-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Conceptual and theoretical models for landscape evolution suggest that fluvial topography is sensitive to climate. However, it remains challenging to demonstrate a compelling link between fluvial topography and climate in natural landscapes. One possible reason is that many studies compare erosion rates to climate data, although theoretical studies show that, at steady state, climate is encoded [...]
Photosynthetically Active Radiation Decomposition Models for Agrivoltaic Systems Applications
Published: 2022-03-04
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering
Decomposition models of solar irradiance estimate the magnitude of diffuse horizontal irradiance from global horizontal irradiance. These two radiation components are well-known to be essential for the prediction of solar photovoltaic systems performance. In open-field agrivoltaic systems, that is the dual use of land for both agricultural activities and solar power conversion, cultivated crops [...]
Acting on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) synergies and trade-offs requires policy-focused systems tools
Published: 2022-03-04
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Systems Engineering
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is contingent on managing complex interactions that create synergies and trade-offs between different goals. Given the importance of interactions, it is necessary to understand the system mechanisms underpinning them to provide insight into their non-linear behaviours such as side-effects, delay, and acceleration. Prominent methods of SDG [...]
Earth’s geodynamic evolution constrained by 182W in Archean seawater
Published: 2022-03-04
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Radiogenic isotope systems are important geochemical tools to unravel geodynamic processes on Earth1. Applied to ancient marine chemical sediments such as banded iron formations (BIFs), the short-lived 182Hf-182W isotope system can serve as key instrument to decipher Earth’s geodynamic evolution. High-precision 182W isotope data of the 2.7 Ga old BIF from the Temagami Greenstone Belt, NE Canada, [...]
Mesoscale eddy variability in the CaribbeanSea
Published: 2022-03-03
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The spatial distribution, the monthly and seasonal variability of mesoscale eddy-observations derived from the AVISO eddy atlas are assessed in the Caribbean Sea for the period between 1993 and 2019 (both included). The average lifetime for the whole set of eddies is 61.8±37.1days, mean amplitude of 7.4±4.2cm for ciclonic and 6.7±3.7cm for anticyclonic and mean radius [...]
Camera-Based Intelligent Stream Stage Sensing for Decentralized Environmental Monitoring
Published: 2022-03-02
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Water Resource Management
On average, flood damages cost $4.4 billion in the US annually. Accurate, vast, and real-time coverage of water level monitoring is crucial for the advancement of environmental research, specifically in the areas of climate change, water distribution, and natural disaster preparedness and management. According to a 2018 EPA report, there are 2.7 million streams and associated watersheds in the US [...]