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1255 environmental sciences Preprints

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environmental sciences direct air carbon capture and storage (daccs) surface waters and food sciences exposure model bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (beccs) fluxes rare earth elements hydrology feasibility assessment framework models natural sink enhancement (nse) ecohydrology geography xgboost stomata extraction big earth data phosphate rock rare earths geophysics climatology (global change) phosphogypsum marine tropical low clouds human society + show more keywords
air temperature geochemistry separation biogeochemical cycling paleontology extreme heat soil texture land surface models ecology agricultural global change heavy metals physical geography remote sensing pollution and contamination sustainable development goals solar system physics meteorology hydrometallurgy geology context-specific assessments of carbon dioxide removal phosphate tailings phosphate mechanism cloud feedback mercury adsorption soil moisture phosphate clay extreme events atmospheric sciences critical elements climate mitigation land-atmosphere interaction veterinary forests gcm oceanography phosphoric acid longwave radiation
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Please note: These are preprints and have not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary.
Rare Earths in Phosphate: Characterization & Extraction
Patrick Zhang

Patrick Zhang

May 31, 2023
Patrick Zhang, Haijun Liang, Zhen Jin FIPR Institute, Florida Polytechnic University David DePaoli, Oak Ridge National Lab Jan Miller and Chen-Luh Lin, University of Utah Raquel Crossman, Freeport McMoRan
Critical Analysis of Earth's Energy Budgets and a new Earth Energy Budget
Brendan Godwin

Brendan Godwin

May 25, 2023
These Earth Energy Budgets (EEBs) came to prominence in 1997 when Kiehl and Trenberth produced their EEB known commonly as KT97. They have regularly come under attack. Primarily they show the Earth emitting 300% more radiation than it receives from the Sun. This energy is being generated out of nothing and violates the 1 st Law of Thermodynamics. They also show the Sun shining on the dark side of the Earth, something that just doesn't happen. All the radiation data in these EEBs, with the exception of Long Wave Down LWD and Long Wave Up LWU infrared IR radiation at the surface, have been divided by 4. This shows the Sun shining equally on all 4 quadrants of the Earth. This has the effect of having the Earth emitting 300% more radiation than it receives from the Sun. This 300% extra radiation is supposedly being generated out of nothing by a greenhouse effect GHE in the atmosphere. It seems apparent that this divide by 4 system is being used as a means of justifying the GHE theory. IR radiation is 100 times less energetic than visible radiation. That means the 322 W/m 2 of IR LWD is the equivalent of 3.22 W/m 2 of visible or Short Wave Down SWD radiation from the Sun. Since it appears these EEBs are being used to calibrate climate models, it has become necessary to review these EEBs and that in turn led to it becoming necessary to generate a new Earth Energy Budget to bring some realism back into them. This paper produces a new Earth Energy budget based on measured data. The Earth receives 1,361 W/m 2 of Short Wave Down SWD solar radiation at the top of atmosphere TOA and 1,361 W/m 2 of Short Wave Up SWU and LWU arrive back at the TOA. 589 W/m 2 of solar radiation is absorbed in the surface and 589 W/m 2 of LWU, latent heat and thermals is emitted by the surface. There is no mystery radiation being generated in the atmosphere and the budget is in balance.
High-resolution thermal imaging in the Antarctic marginal ice zone: Skin temperature...
Ippolita Tersigni
Alberto Alberello

Ippolita Tersigni

and 5 more

May 25, 2023
Insufficient in-situ observations from the Antarctic marginal ice zone limit our understanding and description of relevant mechanical and thermodynamic processes that regulate the seasonal sea ice cycle. Here we present high-resolution thermal images of the ocean surface and complementary measurements of atmospheric variables that were acquired underway during one austral winter and one austral spring expedition in the Atlantic and Indian sectors of the Southern Ocean. Skin temperature data and ice cover images were used to estimate the partitioning of the heterogeneous surface and calculate the heat fluxes to compare with ERA5 reanalyses. The winter marginal ice zone was composed of different but relatively regularly distributed sea ice types with sharp thermal gradients. The surface-weighted skin temperature compared well with the reanalyses due to a compensation of errors between the sea ice fraction and the ice floe temperature. These uncertainties determine the dominant source of inaccuracy for heat fluxes as computed from observed variables. In spring, the sea ice type distribution was more irregular, with alternation of sea ice cover and large open water fractions even 400 km from the ice edge. The skin temperature distribution was more homogeneous and did not produce substantial uncertainties in heat fluxes. The discrepancies relative to reanalysis data are however larger than in winter and are attributed to biases in the atmospheric variables, with the downward solar radiation being the most critical.
Decoupling of rainfall and vegetation greening in the arid Asian endorheic basins due...
Zhengyang Zhang
Xuanlong Ma

Zhengyang Zhang

and 9 more

May 13, 2023
A large portion of Central-Western Asia is made up of contiguous closed basins, collectively termed as the Asian Endorheic Basins (AEB). As these retention basins are only being replenished by the intermittent precipitation, increasing droughts in the region and a growing demand for water have been presumed to jointly contributed to the land degradation. To understand the impact of climate change and human activities on dryland vegetation over the AEB, we conducted trend and partial correlation analysis of vegetation and hydroclimatic change from 2001 to 2021 using multi-satellite observations, including vegetation greenness, total water storage anomalies (TWSA) and meteorological data. Here we show that much of the AEB (65.53%) exhibited a greening trend over the past two decades. Partial correlation analyses indicated that climatic factors had varying effects on vegetation productivity as a function of vegetation types and aridity. In arid AEB, precipitation dominated the vegetation productivity trend. Such a rainfall dominance gave way to TWSA dominance in the hyper-arid AEB. We further showed that the decoupling of rainfall and hyper-arid vegetation greening was largely due to a significant expansion (17.3%) in irrigated cropland across the hyper-arid AEB. Given the extremely harsh environment in the hyper-arid AEB, our results therefore raised the concerns on the ecological and societal sustainability in this region, where a mild increase in precipitation might not be able to catch up the rising evaporative demand and water consumption resulted from global warming and irrigation intensification.
Possible Mitigation of Global Cooling due to Supervolcanic Eruption via Intentional R...
Yangyang Xu
Nathanael Philip Ribar

Yangyang Xu

and 8 more

May 13, 2023
Supervolcanic eruptions induced abrupt global cooling (roughly at a rate of ~1ºC/year lasting for years to decades), such as the prehistoric Yellowstone eruption released, by some estimates, SO2 about 100 times higher than the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. An abrupt global cooling of several ºC, even if only lasting a few years, would present immediate and drastic stress on biodiversity and food production - posing a global catastrophic risk to human society. Using a simple climate model, this paper discusses the possibility of counteracting supervolcanic cooling with the intentional release of greenhouse gases. Although well-known longer-lived compounds such as CO2 and CH₄ are found to be unsuitable for this purpose, select fluorinated gases (F-gases), either individually or in combinations, may be released at gigaton scale to offset most of the supervolcanic cooling. We identify candidate F-gases (viz. C4F6 and CH3F) and derive radiative and chemical properties of ‘ideal’ compounds matching specific cooling events. Geophysical constraints on manufacturing and stockpiling due to mineral availability are considered alongside technical and economic implications based on present-day market assumptions. The consequences of F-gas release in perturbing atmospheric chemistry are discussed in the context of those due to the supervolcanic eruption itself. The conceptual analysis here suggests the possibility of mitigating certain global catastrophic risks via intentional intervention.
A spatial assessment of current and future foliar Hg uptake fluxes across European fo...
Lena Wohlgemuth
Aryeh Feinberg

Lena Wohlgemuth

and 3 more

May 15, 2023
Atmospheric mercury (Hg) is deposited to land surfaces mainly through vegetation uptake. Foliage stomatal gas exchange plays an important role for net vegetation Hg uptake, because foliage assimilates Hg via the stomata. Here, we use empirical relationships of foliar Hg uptake by forest tree species to produce a spatially highly resolved (1 km2) map of foliar Hg fluxes to European forests over one growing season. The modelled forest foliar Hg uptake flux is 23 ± 12 Mg Hg season−1, which agrees with previous estimates from literature. We spatially compare forest Hg fluxes with modelled fluxes of the chemistry-transport model GEOS-Chem and find a good overall agreement. For European pine forests, stomatal Hg uptake was shown to be sensitive to prevailing conditions of relatively high ambient water vapor pressure deficit (VPD). We tested a stomatal uptake model for the total pine needle Hg uptake flux during four previous growing seasons (1994, 2003, 2015/2017, 2018) and two climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). The resulting modelled total European pine needle Hg uptake fluxes are in a range of 8.0 - 9.3 Mg Hg season−1 (min - max). The lowest pine forest needle Hg uptake flux to Europe (8 Mg Hg season−1) among all investigated growing seasons is associated with unusually hot and dry ambient conditions in the European summer 2018, highlighting the sensitivity of the investigated flux to prolonged high VPD. We conclude, that stomatal modelling is particularly useful to investigate changes in Hg deposition in the context of extreme climate events.
Global Optimization of Soil Texture Maps from Satellite-Observed Soil Moisture Drydow...
Qing He
Hui Lu

Qing He

and 9 more

May 19, 2023
Soil moisture (SM) plays an important role in regulating regional weather and climate. However, the simulations of SM in current land surface models (LSMs) contain large biases and model spreads. One primary reason contributing to such model biases could be the misrepresentation of soil texture in LSMs, since current available large-scale soil texture data are often generated from extrapolation algorithm based on a scarce number of in-situ geological measurements. Fortunately, recent advancements of satellite technology provide a unique opportunity to constrain the soil texture datasets by introducing observed information at large spatial scales. Here, two major soil texture baseline datasets (Global Soil Datasets for Earth system science, GSDE and Harmonized World Soil Data from Food and Agriculture Organization, HWSD) are optimized with satellite-estimated soil hydraulic parameters. The optimized soil maps show increased (decreased) sand (clay) content over arid regions. The soil organic carbon content increases globally especially over regions with dense vegetation cover. The optimized soil texture datasets are then used to run simulations in one example LSM, i.e., Noah LSM with Multiple Parameters. Results show that the simulated SM with satellite-optimized soil texture maps are improved at both grid and in-situ scales. Intercase comparison analyses show the SM improvement differs between simulations using different soil maps and soil hydraulic schemes. Our results highlight the importance of incorporating observation-oriented calibration on soil texture in current LSMs. This study also joins the call for a better soil profile representation in the next generation Earth System Models.
Title: Addition of Alkalinity to Rivers: a new CO2 Removal Strategy
Shannon Sterling

Shannon Sterling

and 5 more

May 11, 2023
A document by Shannon Sterling. Click on the document to view its contents.
Optimizing the Implementation Plan of Watershed Best Management Practices with Time-v...

Shen Shen

and 3 more

May 02, 2023
Optimizing the spatial configuration of diverse best management practices (BMPs) can provide valuable decision-making support for comprehensive watershed management. Most existing methods focus on selecting BMP types and locations but neglect their implementation time or order in management scenarios, which are often investment-restricted. This study proposes a new simulation-optimization framework for determining the implementation plan of BMPs by using the net present value to calculate the economic costs of BMP scenarios and the time-varying effectiveness of BMPs to evaluate the environmental effectiveness of BMP scenarios. The proposed framework was implemented based on a Spatially Explicit Integrated Modeling System and demonstrated in an agricultural watershed case study. This case study optimized the implementation time of four erosion control BMPs in a specific spatial configuration scenario under a 5-year stepwise investment process. The proposed method could effectively provide more feasible BMP scenarios with a lower overall investment burden with only a slight loss of environmental effectiveness. Time-varying BMP effectiveness data should be gathered and incorporated into watershed modeling and scenario optimization to better depict the environmental improvement effects of BMPs over time. The proposed framework was sufficiently flexible to be applied to other technical implementations and extensible to more actual application cases with sufficient BMP data. Overall, this study demonstrated the basic idea of extending the spatial optimization of BMPs to a spatiotemporal level by considering stepwise investment, emphasizing the value of integrating physical geographic processes and anthropogenic influences.
Inverse modelling of core flood experiments for predictive models of sandstone and ca...
Senyou An
Nele Wenck

Senyou An

and 6 more

May 02, 2023
Field-scale observations suggest that rock heterogeneities control subsurface fluid flow, and these must be characterised for accurate predictions of fluid migration, such as during \CO2 sequestration. Recent efforts have focused on simulation-based inversion of laboratory observations with X-ray imaging, but models produced in this way have been limited in their predictive ability for heterogeneous rocks. We address the main challenges in this approach through an algorithm that combines: a 3-parameter capillary pressure model, spatial heterogeneity in absolute permeability, the constraint of history match iterations based on marginal error improvement, and image processsing that incorporates more of the experimental data in the calibration. We demonstrate the improvements on five rocks (two sandstones and three carbonates), representing a range of heterogeneous properties, some of which could not be previously modelled. The algorithm results in physically representative models of the rock cores, reducing non-systematic error to a level comparable to the experimental uncertainty.
Palaeobiological and geochemical aspects of reptilian coprolites from a Maastrichtian...
Vivesh V Kapur

Vivesh V Kapur

and 6 more

April 16, 2023
A document by Vivesh V Kapur. Click on the document to view its contents.
A Multi-State Evaluation of the Climate Change Preparedness of Terrestrial Protected...
Frances Marie Panday

Frances Marie Panday

and 3 more

April 16, 2023
A document by Frances Marie Panday. Click on the document to view its contents.
Adsorption-based Separation and Recovery of Rare Earth Elements
Madhav Patel
Athanasios Karamalidis

Madhav Patel

and 1 more

April 16, 2023
Madhav Patel and Athanasios K. Karamalidis*Energy and Minerals Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16802 USA (*correspondence: [email protected])
Long-term trends in productivity across Intermountain West lakes provide no evidence...
Samuel James Sillen
Matthew Richard Voss Ross

Samuel James Sillen

and 2 more

April 11, 2023
Eutrophication represents a major threat to freshwater systems and climate change is expected to drive further increases in freshwater primary productivity. However, long-term in-situ data is available for very few lakes and makes identifying trends and drivers of eutrophication challenging. Using remote sensing data, we conducted a retrospective analysis of long-term trends in trophic status across the Intermountain West, a region with understudied water quality trends and limited long-term datasets. We found that most lakes (55%) were not exhibiting shifts in trophic status from 1984-2019. Our results also show that increases in eutrophication were rare (3% of lakes) during this period, and that lakes exhibiting negative trends in trophic status were more common (17% of lakes). Lakes that were not trending occupied a wide range of lake and landscape characteristics, whereas lakes that were becoming less eutrophic tended to be in more heavily developed catchments. Our results highlight that while there are well-established narratives that climate change can lead to more eutrophication of lakes, this is not broadly observed in our dataset, with more lakes becoming more oligotrophic than lakes becoming eutrophic.
A Comprehensive Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Removal Options for Germany
Malgorzata Borchers
Johannes Förster

Malgorzata Borchers

and 27 more

November 22, 2023
A document by Malgorzata Borchers. Click on the document to view its contents.
Positive Low Cloud Feedback Primarily Caused by Increasing Longwave Radiation from th...
Tomoo Ogura
Mark J Webb

Tomoo Ogura

and 2 more

October 19, 2023
Low cloud feedback in global warming projections by climate models is characterized by its positive sign, the mechanism of which is not well understood. Here we propose that the positive sign is primarily caused by the increase in upward longwave radiation from the sea surface. We devise numerical experiments that enable separation of the feedback into components coming from physically distinct causes. Results of these experiments with a climate model indicate that increases in upward longwave radiation from the sea surface cause warming and absolute drying in the boundary layer, leading to the positive low cloud feedback. The absolute drying results from decrease in surface evaporation, and also from decrease in inversion strength which enhances vertical mixing of drier free tropospheric air into the boundary layer. This mechanism is different from previously proposed understanding that positive low cloud feedback is caused by increases in surface evaporation or vertical moisture contrast.
Garbage-In Garbage-Out (GIGO): The Use and Abuse of Combustion Modeling and Recent U....
PattiMichelle Sheaffer

PattiMichelle Sheaffer

November 12, 2021
Although adequately detailed kerosene chemical-combustion Arrhenius reaction-rate suites were not readily available for combustion modeling until ca. the 1990’s (e.g., Marinov [1998]), it was already known from mass-spectrometer measurements during the early Apollo era that fuel-rich liquid oxygen + kerosene (RP-1) gas generators yield large quantities (e.g., several percent of total fuel flows) of complex hydrocarbons such as benzene, butadiene, toluene, anthracene, fluoranthene, etc. (Thompson [1966]), which are formed concomitantly with soot (Pugmire [2001]). By the 1960’s, virtually every fuel-oxidizer combination for liquid-fueled rocket engines had been tested, and the impact of gas phase combustion-efficiency governing the rocket-nozzle efficiency factor had been empirically well-determined (Clark [1972]). Up until relatively recently, spacelaunch and orbital-transfer engines were increasingly designed for high efficiency, to maximize orbital parameters while minimizing fuels and structural masses: Preburners and high-energy atomization have been used to pre-gasify fuels to increase (gas-phase) combustion efficiency, decreasing the yield of complex/aromatic hydrocarbons (which limit rocket-nozzle efficiency and overall engine efficiency) in hydrocarbon-fueled engine exhausts, thereby maximizing system launch and orbital-maneuver capability (Clark; Sutton; Sutton/Yang). The combustion community has been aware that the choice of Arrhenius reaction-rate suite is critical to computer engine-model outputs. Specific combustion suites are required to estimate the yield of high-molecular-weight/reactive/toxic hydrocarbons in the rocket engine combustion chamber, nonetheless such GIGO errors can be seen in recent documents. Low-efficiency launch vehicles also need larger fuels loads to achieve the same launched mass, further increasing the yield of complex hydrocarbons and radicals deposited by low-efficiency rocket engines along launch trajectories and into the stratospheric ozone layer, the mesosphere, and above. With increasing launch rates from low-efficiency systems, these persistent (Ross/Sheaffer [2014]; Sheaffer [2016]), reactive chemical species must have a growing impact on critical, poorly-understood upper-atmosphere chemistry systems.
Garbage-In Garbage-Out (GIGO): The Use and Abuse of Combustion Modeling and Recent U....
PattiMichelle Sheaffer

PattiMichelle Sheaffer

February 28, 2023
Although adequately detailed kerosene chemical-combustion Arrhenius reaction-rate suites were not readily available for combustion modeling until ca. the 1990’s (e.g., Marinov [1998]), it was already known from mass-spectrometer measurements during the early Apollo era that fuel-rich liquid oxygen + kerosene (RP-1) gas generators yield large quantities (e.g., several percent of total fuel flows) of complex hydrocarbons such as benzene, butadiene, toluene, anthracene, fluoranthene, etc. (Thompson [1966]), which are formed concomitantly with soot (Pugmire [2001]). By the 1960’s, virtually every fuel-oxidizer combination for liquid-fueled rocket engines had been tested, and the impact of gas phase combustion-efficiency governing the rocket-nozzle efficiency factor had been empirically well-determined (Clark [1972]). Up until relatively recently, spacelaunch and orbital-transfer engines were increasingly designed for high efficiency, to maximize orbital parameters while minimizing fuels and structural masses: Preburners and high-energy atomization have been used to pre-gasify fuels to increase (gas-phase) combustion efficiency, decreasing the yield of complex/aromatic hydrocarbons (which limit rocket-nozzle efficiency and overall engine efficiency) in hydrocarbon-fueled engine exhausts, thereby maximizing system launch and orbital-maneuver capability (Clark; Sutton; Sutton/Yang). The rocket combustion community has been aware that the choice of Arrhenius reaction-rate suite is critical to computer engine-model outputs. Specific combustion suites are required to estimate the yield of high-molecular-weight/reactive/toxic hydrocarbons in the rocket engine combustion chamber, nonetheless such GIGO errors can be seen in recent documents. Low-efficiency launch vehicles (SpaceX, Hanwha) therefore also need larger fuels loads to achieve the same launched/transferred mass, further increasing the yield of complex hydrocarbons and radicals deposited by low-efficiency rocket engines along launch trajectories and into the stratospheric ozone layer, the mesosphere, and above. With increasing launch rates from low-efficiency systems, these persistent (Ross/Sheaffer [2014]; Sheaffer [2016]), reactive chemical species must have a growing impact on critical, poorly-understood upper-atmosphere chemistry systems.
XIS-Temperature: A daily spatiotemporal machine-learning model for air temperature in...

Allan C Just

and 3 more

February 09, 2023
The challenge of reconstructing air temperature for environmental applications is to accurately estimate past exposures even where monitoring is sparse. We present XGBoost-IDW Synthesis for air temperature (XIS-Temperature), a high-resolution machine-learning model for daily minimum, mean, and maximum air temperature, covering the contiguous US from 2003 through 2021. XIS uses remote sensing (land surface temperature and vegetation) along with a parsimonious set of additional predictors to make predictions at arbitrary points, allowing the estimation of address-level exposures. We built XIS with a computationally tractable workflow for extensibility to future years, and we used weighted evaluation to fairly assess performance in sparsely monitored regions. The weighted root mean square error (RMSE) of predictions in site-level cross-validation for 2021 was 1.89 K for the minimum daily temperature, 1.27 K for the mean, and 1.72 K for the maximum. We obtained higher RMSEs in earlier years with fewer ground monitors. Comparing to three leading gridded temperature models in 2021 at thousands of private weather stations not used in model training, XIS had at most 49% of the mean square error for the minimum temperature and 87% for the maximum. In a national application, we report a stronger relationship between minimum temperature in a heatwave and social vulnerability with XIS than with the other models. Thus, XIS-Temperature has potential for reconstructing important environmental exposures, and its predictions have applications in environmental justice and human health.
Numerical and field investigations unveil the response of salt marshes to storm sedim...
Natascia Pannozzo

Natascia Pannozzo

and 3 more

January 24, 2023
Salt marshes are ecosystems with significant economic and environmental value. With accelerating rate in sea-level rise, it is not clear whether salt marshes will be able to retain their resilience. Field and numerical investigations have shown that storms play a significant role in marsh accretion and that they might be crucial to salt marsh survival to sea-level rise. Here we present the results from two studies (Pannozzo et al., 2021a,b; Pannozzo et al., 2022) that used numerical and field investigations to quantify the impact of storm surges on the sediment budget of salt marshes within different sea-level scenarios and to investigate how sediment transport pathways determine marsh response to storm sediment input. The Ribble Estuary, North-West England, was used as a test case. The hydrodynamic model Delft3D was used to simulate the estuary morpho-dynamics under selected storm surge and sea-level scenarios. In addition, sediment samples collected with a monthly frequency from different areas of the marsh were analysed with sediments collected from possible sources to integrate field observations with the numerical investigation of sediment transport pathways during stormy and non-stormy conditions. Results showed that, although sea-level rise threatens the estuary and marsh stability by promoting ebb dominance and triggering a net export of sediment, storm surges promote flood dominance and trigger a net import of sediment, increasing the resilience of the estuary and salt marsh to sea-level rise, with the highest surges having the potential to offset sea-level effects on sediment transport and sediment budget of the system. However, although storm sediment input resulted to be significant for the accretion of the marsh platform and particularly for the marsh interior, data showed that storms mainly remobilise sediments already present in the intertidal system and only to a minor extent transport new sediment from external sources.ReferencesPannozzo N. et al., 2021. Salt marsh resilience to sea-level rise and increased storm intensity. Geomorphology, 389 (4): 107825.Pannozzo N. et al., 2021. Dataset of results from numerical simulations of increased storm intensity in an estuarine salt marsh system. Data in Brief, 38 (6): 107336.Pannozzo N. et al., 2022. Sediment transport pathways determine the sensitivity of salt marshes to storm sediment input. In preparation.
Sample size requirements for riverbank macrolitter characterization
Sjoukje Irene de Lange
Y. Mellink

Sjoukje Irene de Lange

and 14 more

October 31, 2022
Anthropogenic litter is omnipresent in terrestrial and freshwater systems, and can have major economic and ecological impacts. Monitoring and modelling of anthropogenic litter comes with large uncertainties due to the wide variety of litter characteristics, including size, mass, and item type. It is unclear as to what the effect of sample set size is on the reliability and representativeness of litter item statistics. Reliable item statistics are needed to (1) improve monitoring strategies, (2) parameterize litter in transport models, and (3) convert litter counts to mass for stock and flux calculations. In this paper we quantify sample set size requirement for riverbank litter characterization, using a database of more than 14,000 macrolitter items (>0.5 cm), sampled for one year at eight riverbank locations along the Dutch Rhine, IJssel and Meuse rivers. We use this database to perform a Monte Carlo based bootstrap analysis on the item statistics, to determine the relation between sample size and variability in the mean and median values. Based on this, we present sample set size requirements, corresponding to selected uncertainty and confidence levels. Optima between sampling effort and information gain is suggested (depending on the acceptable uncertainty level), which is a function of litter type heterogeneity. We found that the heterogeneity of the characteristics of litter items varies between different litter categories, and demonstrate that the minimum required sample set size depends on the heterogeneity of the litter category. More items of heterogeneous litter categories need to be sampled than of heterogeneous item categories to reach the same uncertainty level in item statistics. For example, to describe the mean mass the heterogeneous category soft fragments (>2.5cm) with 90% confidence, 990 items were needed, while only 39 items were needed for the uniform category metal bottle caps. Finally, we use the heterogeneity within litter categories to assess the sample size requirements for each river system. All data collected for this study are freely available, and may form the basis of an open access global database which can be used by scientists, practitioners, and policymakers to improve future monitoring strategies and modelling efforts.
Equatorial Pacific pCO2 Interannual Variability in CMIP6 Models
Suki Cheuk-Kiu Wong
Galen A McKinley

Suki Cheuk-Kiu Wong

and 2 more

October 28, 2022
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the equatorial Pacific is the dominant mode of global air-sea CO2 flux interannual variability (IAV). Air-sea CO2 fluxes are driven by the difference between atmospheric and surface ocean pCO2, with variability of the latter driving flux variability. Previous studies found that models in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) failed to reproduce the observed ENSO-related pattern of CO2 fluxes and had weak pCO2 IAV, which were explained by both weak upwelling IAV and weak mean vertical DIC gradients. We assess whether the latest generation of CMIP6 models can reproduce equatorial Pacific pCO2 IAV by validating models against observations-based data products. We decompose pCO2 IAV into thermally and non-thermally driven anomalies to examine the balance between these competing anomalies, which explain the total pCO2 IAV. The majority of CMIP6 models underestimate pCO2 IAV, while they overestimate SST IAV. Thermal and non-thermal pCO2 anomalies are not appropriately balanced in models, such that the resulting pCO2 IAV is too weak. We compare the relative strengths of the vertical transport of temperature and DIC and evaluate their contributions to thermal and non-thermal pCO2 anomalies. Model-to-observations-based product comparisons reveal that modeled mean vertical DIC gradients are biased weak relative to their mean vertical temperature gradients, but upwelling acting on these gradients is insufficient to explain the relative magnitudes of thermal and non-thermal pCO2 anomalies.
Climate change impacts on Robusta coffee production over Vietnam
Thi Lan Anh Dinh
Filipe Aires

Thi Lan Anh Dinh

and 2 more

October 28, 2022
The Central Highlands of Vietnam is the biggest Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre ex A.Froehner) growing region in the world. This study aims to identify the most important climatic variables that determine the current distribution of coffee in the Central Highlands and build a “coffee suitability” model to assess changes in this distribution due to climate change scenarios. A suitability model based on neural networks was trained on coffee occurrence data derived from national statistics on coffee-growing areas. Bias-corrected regional climate models were used for two climate change scenarios (RCP8.5 and RCP2.6) to assess changes in suitability for three future time periods (i.e., 2038-2048, 2059-2069, 2060-2070) relative to the 2009-2019 baseline. Average expected losses in suitable areas were 62% and 27% for RCP8.5 and RCP2.6, respectively. The loss in suitability due to RCP8.5 is particularly pronounced after 2060. Increasing mean minimum temperature during harvest (October-November) and growing season (March-September) and decreasing precipitation during late growing season (July-September) mainly determined the loss in suitable areas. If the policy commitments made at the Paris agreement are met, the loss in coffee suitability could potentially be compensated by climate change adaptation measures such as making use of shade trees and adapted clones.
Teleconnection Patterns of River Water Quality Dynamics Based on Complex Network Anal...
jiping jiang
Sijie Tang

jiping jiang

and 5 more

October 27, 2022
Water quality in rivers is influenced by natural factors and human activities that interact in complex and nonlinear ways, which make water quality modelling a challenging task. The concepts of complex networks (CN), a recent development in network theory, seem to provide new avenues to unravel the connections and dynamics of water quality phenomenon, including clandestine teleconnections. This study aims to explore the spatial patterns of water quality using the CN concepts, at both catchment scale and larger national scale. Three major water quality parameters, i.e. dissolved oxygen (DO), permanganate index (COD Mn), and ammonia nitrogen (NH 3-N) are considered for analysis. Weekly data over a period of 12 years (since 2006) from 91 monitoring stations across China are analysed. Degree centrality and clustering coefficient methods are employed. The results show that the degree centrality and clustering coefficients values for water quality indicators is DO > NH 3-N > COD Mn at both basin scale and national scale. Since COD Mn is more sensitive to the upstream point source pollution, as it depends upon the locality and human activities, it leads to a higher heterogeneity of CN indexes even among spatially closer stations. NH 3-N comes next due to the identical pollution level and degradation process in a certain spatial extension. Meanwhile, DO shows good regional connectivity in line with the strong diffusivity. However, the CN characteristic is relatively inconspicuous in large basins and nationwide scale, which indicates the regional impact on water quality fluctuation and CN analysis. These original findings boost a comprehensive understanding of water quality dynamics and enlighten novel methods for environment system analysis and watershed management.
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