Preprints
There are 5729 Preprints listed.
Mapping Soil Erodibility over India
Published: 2023-04-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering
Soil erosion is a major environmental problem worldwide, and almost half of India’s total geographical area is susceptible to it. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) has been widely used globally to estimate soil erosion, and Soil erodibility factor, denoted by K-factor, is an essential component of RUSLE. Although previous studies have assessed soil erodibility in India, they have [...]
Locating tectonic tremors with uncertainty estimates: Time- and amplitude-difference optimization, wave propagation-based quality control, and Bayesian inversion
Published: 2023-04-11
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
The accurate location of tectonic tremors helps improve understanding of their underlying physical processes. However, current location methods often do not statistically evaluate uncertainties to a satisfactory degree and do not account for potential biases due to subsurface structures not included in the model. To address these issues, we propose a novel three-step process for locating tectonic [...]
Plastic as a Sediment – A Universal and Objective practical solution to growing ambiguity in plastic litter classification schemes
Published: 2023-04-10
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The universal and growing challenge of inconsistency and ambiguity in plastic classification schemes restricts our ability to predict plastic routing, degradation, and accumulation in all environments worldwide. Global plastic production has risen exponentially, reaching approximately 9,200 million tons between 1950 and 2017. Of this, an estimated 5,300 million tons have been discarded, with a [...]
Consolidated Geothermal Database UK (CGD-UK): A digital open license database for temperature and thermal conductivity in the UK.
Published: 2023-04-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Natural Resource Economics, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
Variations in subsurface heat flow within the upper crust control the distribution of geothermal resources. Development of a robust understanding of these variations requires reliable measurements of temperature and thermal conductivity. To date, measurements of temperature and conductivity onshore the UK have been unavailable in an accessible, clearly structured digital format. Here, we rectify [...]
Settlement and anthropization of the Azores Islands
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Life Sciences
The landscape of the Azores Islands is one of the most deeply transformed among oceanic islands, as most of their original forests have been replaced by other vegetation types introduced from elsewhere. This has been considered a large-scale unintentional ecological and biogeographical experiment on the assembly of island biotas and ecosystems. These transformations are known to have been caused [...]
A high-resolution temporal framework to understand the reach-scale controls on wood budgeting
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Large active channels usually store more wood than channels with a narrow flow because of the availability of large unvegetated bars for wood deposition and inner functioning that usually supplies more wood through channel shifting. However, the dynamics of the wood supply (wood input, output, or stability) can vary substantially over time and the drivers are largely unknown. To explore them, we [...]
Governing high-integrity ecosystem markets
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
There is growing global interest in the potential for ecosystem markets to facilitate climate and nature recovery. Yet, poorly designed and operated markets are prone to corporate “greenwashing” and negative consequences for nature and local communities. With the rapid emergence of ecosystem markets around the world, there is a need to systematically analyse ecosystem market governance [...]
Mercury methylation in boreal aquatic ecosystems under oxic conditions and climate change: a review
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Life Sciences
Methylmercury (MeHg) formation is a concerning environmental issue described in waters and sediments from multiple aquatic ecosystems. The genetic and metabolic bases of mercury (Hg) methylation have been well described in anoxic environments, but a number of factors seem to point towards alternative pathways potentially occurring in pelagic waters under oxic conditions. Boreal aquatic ecosystems [...]
Revisiting the Climate Narrative
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Agriculture, Climate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Food Science, Forest Management, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Environmental Sciences, Soil Science, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is chiefly tied to land stewardship. Farmers and loggers have removed the plants that, until the industrial era, kept the soil fungi alive, kept soil emissions nearby by breaking the wind, and soaked those up. The result is plumes of carbon dioxide. Putting plants back in would curb these emissions. Farmers and loggers could address biodiversity loss [...]
Examining the power supplied to Earth's dynamo by magnesium precipitation and radiogenic heat production
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
We examine magnesium and potassium solubility in liquid Fe mixtures, representative of Earth’s core composition, in equilibrium with liquid silicate mixtures representative of an early magma ocean. Our study is based on the calculation of the chemical potentials of MgO and K2O in both phases, using density functional theory. For MgO, we also study stability against precipitation of the solid [...]
Compressibility of ferropericlase at high-temperature: evidence for the iron spin crossover in seismic tomography
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Mineral Physics
The iron spin crossover in ferropericlase, the second most abundant mineral in Earth’s lower mantle, causes changes in a range of physical properties, including seismic wave velocities. Understanding the effect of temperature on the spin crossover is essential to detect its signature in seismic observations and constrain its occurrence in the mantle. Here, we report the first experimental results [...]
High-resolution methane mapping with the EnMAP satellite imaging spectroscopy mission
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring
Methane mitigation from anthropogenic sources such as fossil fuels and waste management has been found as one of the most promising strategies to curb global warming in the near future. Satellite-based imaging spectrometers have demonstrated to be well-suited to detect and quantify these emissions at high spatial resolution. These instruments produce so-called hyperspectral data cubes of the [...]
Spatio-temporal variability of small-scale leads based on helicopter winter sea ice surface temperatures
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Surface temperature is crucial in studying the Arctic climate, particularly during winter. We examine 1 m resolution surface temperature maps of 35 helicopter flights between 02 October 2019 and 23 April 2020, recorded during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC). The seasonal cycle of the average surface temperature spans from 265.6 K on 02 October [...]
EfficientRainNet: Smaller Neural Networks Based on EfficientNetV2 for Rainfall Nowcasting
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering
Rainfall nowcasting provides short-term, high-resolution information on the location, intensity, and timing of rainfall, which is crucial for weather forecasting, flood warning, and emergency response. This can help people and organizations make informed decisions to mitigate the impact of severe weather events and reduce the risk of damage and loss of life. There are many attempts at tackling [...]
Ambitious food system interventions required to mitigate the risk of exceeding Earth’s environmental limits
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability
Transforming the global food system is necessary to avoid exceeding the Earth’s environmental limits. A robust evidence base is crucial to assess the scale and combination of interventions required for a sustainable transformation. We developed a risk assessment framework, underpinned by an evidence synthesis of global food system modeling studies, to quantify the potential of individual and [...]