Preprints
There are 6976 Preprints listed.
The Asymmetric Distribution of Rainfall Frequency and Amounts in India
Published: 2022-09-29
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Studies of rainfall usually focus on the total amount precipitating throughout a certain period. Compared to rain rates associated with extreme events, the rain rates associated with the most frequent events is understudied. In this study, the characteristics of daily precipitation in India are explored using two metrics - rain frequency peak (the most frequent non-zero rain rate) and rain amount [...]
Geochemical mapping by unmixing alluvial sediments: An example from northern Australia
Published: 2022-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geomorphology, Natural Resource Economics, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Water Resource Management
Alluvial sediments have long been used in geochemical surveys as their compositions are assumed to be representative of areas upstream. Overbank and floodplain sediments, in particular, are increasingly used for regional to continental-scale geochemical mapping. However, during downstream transport, sediments from heterogeneous source regions are carried away from their source regions and mixed. [...]
Modeling Stratospheric Polar Vortex Variation and Identifying Vortex Extremes Using Explainable Machine Learning
Published: 2022-10-01
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The winter stratospheric polar vortex (SPV) exhibits considerable variability in magnitude and structure, which can result in extreme SPV events. These extremes can subsequently influence weather in the troposphere from weeks to months and thus are important sources of surface predictability. However, the predictability of the SPV extreme events is limited to 1-2 weeks in state-of-the-art [...]
Global groundwater warming
Published: 2022-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Aquifers contain the largest store of unfrozen freshwater, making groundwater critical for life on Earth. Groundwater temperatures infl uence stream thermal regimes, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, aquatic biogeochemical processes, water quality, and the geothermal potential. Yet little is known about how groundwater responds to surface warming across spatial and temporal scales. We simulate [...]
Bayesian inference on the initiation phase of the 2014 Iquique, Chile, earthquake
Published: 2022-10-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We investigate the initiation phase of the 2014 Mw8.1 Iquique earthquake in northern Chile. In particular, we focus on the month preceding the mainshock, a time period known to exhibit an intensification of the seismic and aseismic activity in the region. The goal is to estimate the time-evolution and partitioning of seismic and aseismic slip during the preparatory phase of the mainshock. To do [...]
LancasterAQ: A High Resolution Street Level Dataset of Ultrafine Particles
Published: 2022-10-03
Subjects: Other Earth Sciences
We present a mobile dataset of ultrafine particles (UFPs) in Lancaster, UK, with measurements taken by car and bike over 5 days in May 2022. UFPs are a constituent of air pollution and comprise of particulate matter (PM) less than 0.1μm in diameter. UFPs are unregulated and less measured than larger constituents of PM, despite being harmful to health and an important part of the atmospheric and [...]
Effect of mineral heterogeneity on fracture dissolution in carbonate-rich caprocks during subsurface CO2 injection
Published: 2022-10-03
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Chemical interactions between CO2, brine, and caprock-forming minerals might lead to dissolution of the fractures present in the caprock of CO2 storage sites. One factor that can affect the chemically induced fracture alterations is mineral heterogeneity in the caprock. In this study, we investigate the effect of mineral heterogeneity on fracture dissolution of four carbonate-rich caprock [...]
Deterministic icehouse and greenhouse climates throughout Earth history
Published: 2022-10-06
Subjects: Climate, Geochemistry
Some theories posit that icehouse (with polar ice sheets) and greenhouse (ice-free) states throughout Earth history are not deterministic, but bistable—both states may occur for the same level of radiative forcing. If correct, then the climate state that persists for millions of years can depend on which state already existed, giving the system a `memory’ effect. However, on these timescales the [...]
A Stability Analysis of Neural Networks and Its Application to Tsunami Early Warning
Published: 2023-05-14
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Computation
Neural networks (NNs) enable precise modeling of complicated geophysical phenomena but are sensitive to small input changes. In this work, we present a new method for analyzing this instability in NNs. We focus our analysis on adversarial examples, test-time inputs with carefully-crafted human-imperceptible perturbations that expose the worst-case instability in a model's predictions. Our [...]
Water-efficient Indian rice cultivation boosts exports despite high carbon footprints
Published: 2026-03-02
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences, Plant Sciences
Most agricultural sustainability efforts adopt a national-scale view, masking regional trade-offs between crop yields and environmental footprints. To measure trade-offs, satellite remote sensing based life cycle assessment of rice agroecosystems across India from 2004 to 2021 was conducted revealing pivotal shifts of four cultivation typologies, termed as unsustainable, conventional, productive, [...]
Benthic habitat mapping: A review of three decades of mapping biological patterns on the seafloor
Published: 2023-09-26
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
What is benthic habitat mapping, how is it accomplished, and how has that changed over time? We query the published literature to answer these questions and synthesize the results quantitatively to provide a comprehensive review of the field over the past three decades. Categories of benthic habitat maps are differentiated unambiguously by the response variable (i.e., the subject being mapped) [...]
Pre-eruptive reservoir conditions of the peralkaline Rungwe Pumice (Tanzania) Plinian eruption from haüyne-hosted melt inclusions
Published: 2025-01-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The style and explosivity of volcanic eruptions are primarily governed by the interplay between conduit dynamics (e.g., magma ascent rate and degassing efficiency) and pre-eruptive magmatic conditions, both of which influence magma rheology. In highly alkaline magmas (i.e., agpaitic index > 1), the depolymerising effect of alkaline elements lowers melt viscosity at a given temperature, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]