Preprints
There are 5978 Preprints listed.
Natural and human drivers of specific conductance and major ion composition in United States lakes
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Specific conductance (SC) and major ion composition are important for understanding and predicting lake water quality and ecosystem responses to global changes and human disturbances. However, little is known about SC and ionic composition for populations of lakes at the continental scale, nor their relationships with natural and human factors operating at multiple spatial scales. We examined the [...]
On the link between weather regimes and energy shortfall during winter for 28 European countries
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences
Increasing the proportion of energy generation from renewables is one of the necessary steps towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are highly weather sensitive, leading to a challenge when balancing energy demand and renewable energy production, and therefore in managing energy shortfall. Identifying periods of high shortfall, here [...]
The Origin of Forearc Depressions
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Sedimentology, Tectonics and Structure
Forearc depressions form over continental subduction zones with young, slowly subducting slabs and thick trench fills. They are bound seaward by a coast range and landward by a volcanic arc such that subsidence in forearc depressions occurs between orogens and in areas characterized by plate convergence. We propose a model for forearc depression formation based on geophysical and seismic data [...]
Complex and confined laboratory ruptures explain scaling of the critical slip distance for earthquake faulting
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Earthquake sequences in nature are complex, exhibiting a range of magnitudes and slip behaviors. In contrast, earthquake-like instabilities generated on frictional faults in the laboratory and in continuum numerical models are usually quasi-periodic with a smaller range of magnitudes and durations. The discrepancy, especially apparent for cm-sized samples used in lab friction experiments, has [...]
Operationalizing accessibility in environmental sustainability efforts: Challenges, barriers, and opportunities
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Environmental Studies
There is growing recognition of the need to move towards climate justice in response to the climate crisis; that is, ensuring mitigation and adaptation responses centre equity, and promote the inclusion of marginalized or otherwise ‘equity-deserving’ groups, including people with disabilities. Despite this recognition, there is little empirical research exploring the intersection of disability in [...]
End-to-End Deployment of the Educational AI Hub for Personalized Learning and Engagement: A Case Study on Environmental Science Education
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Engineering Education
This study introduces an end-to-end framework for deploying conversational AI-enabled educational assistants, focusing on personalized support for students across diverse subject areas, including Business, Culture, Environmental Sciences, History, Politics, and Science, as outlined in our evaluation framework. The system leverages advanced conversational AI technologies to provide targeted, [...]
Decision-making under flood predictions: a risk perception study of coastal real estate
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Flood models, while representing our best knowledge of a natural phenomenon, are continually evolving. Their predictions, albeit undeniably important for flood risk management, contain considerable uncertainties related to model structure, parameterisation, and input data. With multiple sources of flood predictions becoming increasingly available through online flood maps, the uncertainties in [...]
Evolution of the Spatial Pattern of Manufacturing Innovation Capacity and Influencing Factors in the Yangtze River Delta Region
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Higher Education
This paper aims to reveal the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics and influencing factors of manufacturing innovation capacity in the Yangtze River Delta region, providing empirical references for formulating regional manufacturing innovation center layout policies. Using the number of patents granted in the manufacturing industry to represent manufacturing innovation capacity, [...]
Numerical Investigation of Energy Dissipation and Hydraulic Performance of Slotted Roller Buckets with a Different Teeth Configuration
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Engineering
Larger and Steadier Warming since 1850 from Harmonized Land and Ocean Temperature Records
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate historical temperature estimates are crucial for understanding current warming levels and informing policy decisions. Trends in global land and ocean temperatures diverge, however, before 1945. Inter-calibration of coastal land-ocean temperatures indicates that this divergence arises from under-corrected biases in sea-surface temperature linked to late 19th century instrumentation [...]
MicroCrystalNet: An Efficient Convolutional Neural Network for Microcrystal Classification using Scanning Electron Microscope Petrography
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Engineering, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences
Morphological characterization of microcrystalline rock textures typically relies upon the visual interpretation and manual measurement of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imagery: a practice fraught with subjectivity, inefficiency, sampling bias, and data loss. We introduce a state-of-the-art computer vision pipeline, built on deep learning architectures, for segmenting and classifying [...]
Large-scale controls on intensity-duration characteristics of heatwaves in an idealised model
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate
The relationship between the large-scale structure of the atmospheric circulation and the mean intensity and duration of heatwaves is studied in an idealised climate model. Using the tight relationship between near-surface temperature and lower tropospheric dry static energy (DSE) in the model, we study the energetics of the lower troposphere during heatwaves in the model. This analysis leads to [...]
An Integrated Framework for Actionable Flood Warnings on Road Structures Using High Resolution Satellite Imagery
Published: 2024-08-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology
Floods rank among the most devastating natural hazards globally. Unlike many other natural calamities, floods typically occur in densely populated regions, resulting in immediate and long-term adverse impacts on communities, including fatalities, injuries, health risks, and significant economic and environmental losses annually. Traditional flood models, while useful, are constrained by [...]
The Effect of Rayleigh-Love Coupling in an Anisotropic Medium
Published: 2024-08-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
For a weakly anisotropic medium, Rayleigh and Love wave phase speeds at angular frequency $\omega$ and propagation azimuth $\psi$ are given approximately by $V(\omega,\psi) = A_0 + A_{2c} \cos 2 \psi + A_{2s} \sin 2 \psi + A_{4c} \cos 4 \psi + A_{4s} \sin 4 \psi$. Earlier theories of the propagation of surface waves in anisotropic media based on non-degenerate perturbation theory predict that the [...]
Considerations for CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers in tectonically active regions with implications for the Lower Mainland British Columbia (LMBC)
Published: 2024-08-17
Subjects: Engineering
Underground geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) has emerged as one of the most viable solutions for mitigating global carbon emissions during the transition to a net-zero economy. Within subsurface geological strata, saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs are the primary targets for CO2 storage. However, in regions with limited oil and gas production operations, underground [...]