bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Clustering and Random Forest Analysis for the Identification of Hydrological Controls of Slope Response to Rainfall
Authors: Roman Quintero Daniel Camilo , Marino Pasquale , Santonastaso Giovanni Francesco , Greco Roberto
Published: February 2023

The assessment of the response of slopes to precipitations is important for various applications, from water resources management to hazard assessment due to extreme rainfall events. It is well known that the underground conditions prior to the initiation of rainfall events control the hydrological processes that occur in slopes, affecting the water exchange through their boundaries. The present study aims at identifying hydrological variables to be monitored and modelled, suitable to improve the prediction of slope response to precipitations, for the case of a slope covered with loose pyroclastic coarse-grained soil overlaying a karstic bedrock, typical of southern Apennines (Italy). Field monitoring has been carried out for three years at the slope, including stream level recordings, meteorological recordings, and soil water content and suction measurements, which allowed setting up a physically based hydrological model of the slope, coupling the unsaturated flow in the soil cover with a perched aquifer developing in the fractured bedrock. To enlarge the field dataset, a synthetic dataset has been generated, linking a previously calibrated stochastic rainfall generator to the hydrological model. In this way, a synthetic dataset of 1000 years has been obtained, containing information on rainfall, aquifer water level and soil volumetric water content at different depths. Machine Learning techniques have been used to unwrap the relationships linking the studied variables, typically non-linear. The Random Forest technique has been used to assess the importance of each variable on the slope response, and the k-means clustering technique has been used to explore the geometrical disposition of data, so to identify seasonally recurrent different conditions controlling the slope response. The results indicate that the slope response, in terms of the fraction of rainwater remaining stored in the soil cover at the end of each rainfall event, can be predicted from the underground conditions prior to the rainfall initiation, weighting the role, on one hand, of the soil moisture excess above field capacity, controlling the ease of the water to flow in and out of the soil cover and, on the other hand, of the perched aquifer water level, that gives evidence of the activation of effective slope drainage.
Causal model evaluation of Arctic-midlatitude process during the boreal cold season in CMIP
Authors: Galytska Evgenia , Weigel Katja , Handorf Dörthe , Jaiser Ralf , Köhler Raphael , Runge Jakob , Eyring Veronika
Published: February 2023

Linked to increased sea ice loss, the Arctic region has warmed at least four times faster than the global average over the past 40 years. Mutual links between amplified Arctic warming with changes and variability in midlatitude weather have been discussed in several studies. Nevertheless, the lack of consistent conclusions between observations and model simulations obfuscates the interpretation behind the mechanisms of Arctic-midlatitude teleconnections. To contribute to the understanding of Arctic-midlatitude connections that occur in conditions of amplified Arctic warming, we applied causal discovery to analyse causal and contemporaneous links. Initially, we calculated causal dependencies for monthly mean ERA5 reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and Hadley Centre Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature among local and remote processes. Then, by comparing causal graphs detected in reanalyses data with a number of climate model historical simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), we assessed the performance of climate models and evaluated the robustness of the observed Arctic-midlatitude connections in the current climate. By comparing causal graphs from the CMIP6 historical and Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) we estimated future changes in Arctic-midlatitude teleconnections towards the end of the century. In this study, we focus on the differences in the mechanism of Arctic-midlatitude teleconnections that occur during the boreal cold season, i.e. early winter (October-November-December), winter (December-January-February), and late winter (January-February-March). In this study, we will present the major findings of Galytska et al., 2022 discussing how causal model evaluation helps to summarize major differences between causal interdependencies detected in observations and simulated by a number of climate models. Understanding these differences can be the basis for further improvement of the representation of Arctic-midlatitude teleconnections in climate models.References. Evgenia Galytska, Katja Weigel, Dörthe Handorf, Ralf Jaiser, Raphael Köhler, Jakob Runge, and Veronika Eyring. Causal model evaluation of Arctic-midlatitude teleconnections in CMIP6. Authorea. October 06, 2022. DOI: 10.1002/essoar.10512569.1 
Can we be precautionary with respect to all risks? A natural and health hazards perspective
Authors: Raffetti Elena , Di Baldassarre Giuliano
Published: February 2023

Understanding how individuals perceive risk of natural and health hazards can help policymakers, scientists, and clinicians to communicate risks. We show that individuals (as well as communities and institutions) cannot apply the precautionary principle to all threats, and thus we challenge the binary categorizations of risk takers vs. risk avoiders. To illustrate, we compared how people perceive the risk associated with natural and biological hazards in relation to the main preventable health-related risk factor – i.e. tobacco smoking by analyzing the results of nationwide surveys carried out in Italy and Sweden in August 2021. In particular, we compared smokers and non-smokers considering two domains of risk perception (likelihood and individual impact) for seven threats (epidemic, climate change, floods, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes and air pollution). Preliminary results show that: i) the risk perception of some threats is higher in smokers compared to non-smokers; and ii) this difference is mainly observed in a permissive tobacco environment. These results and their implications show the importance of integrating multi-risk components into risk communication, along with promoting policies that simultaneously address health and natural risks.
Spatio-Temporal Prediction of PM1.0 Concentration in South Korea Using a Machine Learning Algorithm
Authors: Hwang Hyemin , Park Jong Sung , Ahn Joon Young , Lee Kwang Yul , Kim Jong Bum , Lee Jae Young
Published: February 2023

Since smaller particles can get through deeper into the human body, a model that predicts PM1.0 concentration temporally and spatially is important. Despite their importance, there are significantly fewer PM1.0 measurement stations than PM2.5 and PM10 in South Korea. Therefore, in this study, PM1.0 prediction models were constructed using a machine learning algorithm to predict the spatiotemporal concentration of PM1.0 in a place where the PM1.0 measurement was not available.From January to December 2021, hourly data for the concentration of particulate matters(PM10 and PM2.5), the composition of PM2.5, the concentration of gaseous pollutants(SO2, O3, CO, NO, NOy, NH3), and weather conditions(wind direction, wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, press, precipitation, cloud) measured at three different Air Quality Measurement Systems were collected. PM1.0 concentrations were collected at two of these sites which are Seoul and Ansan(Gyeonggi-do), and no PM1.0 concentration was measured at the other site which is Seosan(Chungcheongnam-do). Since the three measurement stations were located close to each other and had similar sources and characteristics, the concentration of PM1.0 in Seosan was predicted by using a model trained based on Seoul and Ansan data.Based on collected data, the importance of variables in the model was identified and variables that are important in predicting PM1.0 concentration were selected. Ensemble models (Random Forest, gradient boosting) and sequence models (RNN, LSTM, GRU) were compared to find a better model. Each model was evaluated by calculating the coefficient of determination and the proportion of impossible concentrations. Finally, based on the model with the best prediction result, the PM1.0 concentration was predicted at the target location (Ansan) where the PM1.0 concentration was unknown.Our results showed that PM1.0 concentration can be predicted with high accuracy considering both the spatial distribution and temporal variability of the concentration. The results of this study can be used as data for selecting models in air quality prediction studies using machine learning. In addition, economical and efficient choices can be made in the construction of new monitoring stations in the future. AcknowledgmentsThis study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant number NRF-2021R1C1C1013350) and by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER), funded by the Ministry of Environment (ME) of the Republic of Korea (NIER-2022-04-02-087).
Identifying the Origins of PET Nanoplastics in the Abyssal South Atlantic Using Backtracking Lagrangian Simulations with Fragmentation
Authors: Pierard Claudio , van Sebille Erik
Published: February 2023

During an expedition in January 2020, nanoplastics were sampled at a depth of -5170m over Cape Basin in the South Atlantic Ocean. Using photo-induced force microscopy, it was identified that these were polyethylene terephthalate (PET) particles with an approximate diameter of 50 nm at different stages of degradation. Using a state-of-the-art Lagrangian 3D simulation that includes an idealized fragmentation scheme, we backtracked virtual particles from the sampling location to establish the possible origins of the PET nanoplastics. We performed several simulations with different fragmenting timescales, for 13 years from the date of sampling, using the GLO12V3R1 hydrodynamic data from Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service. We found that the nanoparticles (smaller than 1μm) could not have fragmented into nanoplastics at the surface and reached the sampling location within 13 years. The most likely scenario is that these particles started to sink from the surface as microplastics (larger than 1μm) and then fragmented in the water column far from the surface. This suggests that the fragmentation happened through processes like slow thermal oxidative degradation or hydrolysis and not photodegradation. We also found that less than 0.2% of the virtual particles came from the coast and that the fragmentation timescale prescribed to the modelled particles, affects how they drift in the ocean by controlling the time they drift at different depths. This study contributes to understanding the fate and sources of nanoplastics suspended deep in the ocean.
Unveiling the Recent Changes in Barrier Layer Dynamics over the Arabian Sea Mini Warm Pool
Authors: Lahiri Sankar Prasad , Pant Vimlesh
Published: February 2023

The reversal of monsoon wind and restriction of further northward oceanic heat transport makes the Indian Ocean unique compared to the other two tropical oceans. The circulation over the north Indian Ocean (NIO) also reverses following this change in the wind pattern. Two basins of NIO, i.e., the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, witness distinct physical and dynamical properties in response to this wind pattern and freshwater influx, although they lie within the same latitudinal band. The focus of this study is over the south-eastern Arabian Sea (SEAS) (7.5 - 12.5°N, 72.5 - 76.5°E), where sea surface temperature (SST) of more than 29.5°C is observed during late April and early May. This warm temperature over the SEAS is associated with the formation of a monsoon onset vortex that influences the onset of the Indian Summer Monsoon. Previous studies have suggested that high SST over the SEAS is independent of the tropical Indian Ocean warm pool. This high SST region is referred to as the Arabian Sea Mini Warm Pool (ASMWP). The development of ASMWP starts in November when the coastal Kelvin wave packets initiate the formation of an equatorward flowing boundary current along the east coast of India, East Indian Coastal Current (EICC). EICC transports the low saline Bay of Bengal water to the SEAS, resulting in a strong haline stratification which leads to the formation of a barrier layer. Once this layer forms, it restricts the vertical mixing of water in the mixed layer with the thermocline water. The objective of this study is to observe the recent change in the dynamics of this barrier layer thickness (BLT) over SEAS. Using reanalysis data from Copernicus Marine Services, the seasonal and yearly evolution of BLT is analyzed from 1993 to 2018. This study calculates the isothermal layer depth (ILD) based on the 1°C temperature criteria. The density change is computed following this temperature change which is used to calculate mixed layer depth (MLD). The monthly climatology suggests the presence of thick BLT (i.e., ILD - MLD) over SEAS from December to February, although some remnant is present in March. A seasonal average (December - February) of BLT suggests a significant increasing trend from 1993 to 2018. Although the MLD is not showing any significant changes, the ILD is witnessing a substantial increase over these years. The effect of the ILD increase is also reflected in the stratification and heat content. Using geostrophic eddy kinetic energy, the energetics of the EICC in October-November are noticed in three different regions along the southeast coast of India and south of Sri Lanka. The influence of local forcings on the dynamics of the BLT is investigated to understand the mechanism behind this evolution of BLT and its role in ASMWP variability.
Detection of archaeological soil marks using airborne hyperspectral images
Authors: Choi Yoon Jung
Published: February 2023

Soil marks are detectable by airborne images due to the difference in soil colour between the archaeological feature and the surrounding background soil. Colour of the soil only represents the visible part of the soil spectrum which contains physical and chemical information of the soil. This study will present a spectral analysis method to prospect soil mark features and buried archaeological remains using airborne image data. This method statistically calculates the difference between the targeted spectrum and the background (non-archaeological) soil spectrum. The difference is quantified by an R-value. If the R value is larger than 1, then the spectral behaviour of the targeted spectrum is different from the spectrum of the background soil and, thus, likely to be an archaeological soil spectrum (soil mark). In this study, the spectral analysis method will be applied to APEX imaging spectroscopy data collected from an archaeological site in Sárvíz Valley, Hungary. Previously, the method was successfully applied to the same archaeological site using soil spectra gathered by a portable hand-held VIS-NIR spectrometer. Here, the results showed clear spectral difference between soil mark features and background soil. This study will 1) compare the results of the method from hyperspectral image and ground-based spectral data, and 2) investigate the most effective waveband for identifying archaeological spectral signatures to verify the effectiveness of the method.
Quantification of methane emissions from urban sewer network
Authors: Joo Jaewon , Jeong Sujong , Shin Jaewon , Chang Dong Yeong
Published: February 2023

Sewer systems, which consist of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and sewer networks, are important urban water infrastructure that helps to improve water quality and prevent flooding. While they are recognized as a major source of methane emissions with considerable potential, accurate quantification of methane emissions from sewage systems has not yet been achieved. Here, we measured atmospheric methane from the urban sewer network using a mobile laboratory, which consists of the electric vehicle and monitoring instruments for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and ethane (C2H6). The mobile measurements of sewer networks are conducted in Gwanak district of Seoul in South Korea from September 2022. More than 3,000 manholes and rain gutters in commercial and residential areas were measured for the methane emissions of the combined sewer network type in Gwanak district. The methane emissions from urban sewer network were found to be significant in the study area. However, these emissions are currently not included in the national GHG inventory. Further details of our findings will be introduced at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 23.   This work was supported by Brain Pool Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (No.2019H1D3A1A01101988)
Comparison Studies for Surface Water Visual Survey and Surface and Water-Column Trawl for Floating and Suspended Marine Plastic Debris
Authors: Shim Won Joon , Jang Yu Lee , Eo Soeun , Jeong Jongwook , Ha Song Yong , Han Gi Myung , Hong Sang Hee
Published: February 2023

A visual survey using a vessel is a representative method to assess the degree of pollution of floating plastic debris in marine environments. However, the visual survey may more easily miss plastic items on and just below water (e.g. plastic bags) than above water (e.g. PET bottles). In addition, there are very limited comparison studies for floating plastic debris on the water surface and suspended plastic debris in the water column. None of the studies quantitatively determined the difference in detection rate by visual and surface trawl surveys. The aim of this study is to evaluate what could be relatively missed and underestimated by surface water visual surveys.Floating plastic debris was monitored by visual and trawl surveys (depth of 0.5 m) in three coastal areas (rural area, GJ; aquafarm area, JH; urban and near river mouth area, SY) of Korea over the four seasons in 2022. In addition, during the visual survey of floating plastic debris in a fishing area (GH), near the river mouth of Han River, a shrimp beam trawl was used to collect plastic debris in the water column (water depth of 10 m) except for thin surface and bottom layer over three seasons in 2022. The seasonal patterns and composition of floating plastic debris in the surface water of JH, GJ, and SY were similar between the visual and trawl surveys. But, the mean densities of most plastics obtained from trawl surveys were 3 to 7 times higher than those from visual surveys. In particular, it was hard to detect small-sized, submerged, or dark-colored fishing gear with the visual survey. Patches with small items can increase the uncertainty of the visual survey. Therefore, visual surveys may underestimate the amount of marine plastic debris above and just below the water.Various types of floating plastic debris were observed by visual survey in the surface water of GH: plastic bags/sheets (54%), expanded polystyrene pieces (18%), plastic containers (4%), strapping (3%), plastic bottles/caps (3%), discarded fishing gear (1%), and other hard plastic pieces (14%). In the water column of GH, however, plastic bags/sheets (93%) predominated and followed by strapping (4%), discarded fishing gear (1%), and other plastics (1%). These results indicate that plastic bags/sheets and strapping would mainly submerge in the water column, but expanded polystyrene pieces, plastic containers, plastic bottles/caps, and other hard plastic pieces are more likely to float rather than sink. Thus, the application of only visual surveys for plastic pollution monitoring in water may largely miss and underestimate the plastic items transported on and below water such as plastic bags and sheets.
Field experiment on transport and deposition of plastic bottles along mountain river
Authors: Liro Maciej , Mikuś Paweł , Anna Zielonka , Kieniewicz Mateusz
Published: February 2023

Information on the transport and deposition of riverine macroplastic is crucial for selecting proper locations for river cleaning actions and for trapping infrastructure installation. Obtaining such information for mountain rivers is of particular importance because their specific characteristics make them particularly prone to illegal dumping, plastic litter input from slope to the river channel, and an increased rate of secondary microplastic production in the river channel (1).To shed some light on the patterns of macroplastic transport and deposition along mountain rivers we have performed a field experiment utilizing tracked plastic (PET) bottles injected to the channel of the mountainous Skawa River in the Polish Carpathians. After 50-57 days of low-flow conditions, we documented transport distances (n=64) which were non-normally distributed and reached from 0.37 km to 16.27 km (median=1.73 km, quartile range=5.29 km). Most of the tracked bottles were deposited on woody debris (71.9%, n=46) (Photo 1) at elevations ranging from 0 to 1.2 m (median=0.4 m, quartile range=0.45 m) above the low-flow water level. Surprisingly, the straight and narrow channelized reach of the studied river trapped 15.3 % of the plastic bottles transported through it, while the highly sinuous, wide unregulated one only 8.7 %, which is probably related to the more frequent contact of woody debris (present in both reaches) with the flowing water, occurring during low-flow conditions within the narrower, channelized reach.Our initial results suggest that places of woody debris deposition along rivers can be a good location for river cleaning actions. Photo 1. The deposition of plastic bottles on wood jam(the Skawa River, S Poland) (photo by M. Liro) References(1) Liro, M., van Emmerik, T.H., Zielonka, A., Gallitelli, L., Mihai, F.C., 2023. The unknown fate of macroplastic in mountain river. Sci. Total Environ. 865, 161224.
Time-dependent Seismic Hazard Parameters Evaluation with SHAPE MATLAB Package
Authors: Leptokaropoulos Konstantinos
Published: February 2023

Seismic processes can be often time dependent at different time scales. Earthquake interactions (e.g., static and dynamic stress changes), anthropogenic activities (e.g., mining, fluid injection, hydrocarbon exploitation) fluid dynamics (e.g., in geothermal fields and volcanic areas) and periodic phenomena (e.g., earth and ocean tides) result to changes in frequency and magnitude distribution of earthquakes. These changes apply in a wide range of time scales from seconds to decades and their evaluation is vital, for seismic hazard assessment in the vicinity of urban and industrial areas. In addition, such estimates can be used in industrial sites to facilitate production optimization, and they also may offer better insights for the underlying physical mechanisms of seismogenesis (e.g., stress transfer, fluid migration pathways and pore pressure, chemical alteration and frictional properties in depth).SHAPE (Seismic HAzard Parameters Evaluation), is an open source toolbox, based on MATLAB, developed within the SERA (Seismology and Earthquake Engineering Research Infrastructure Alliance for Europe) Project, and is available for use by seismologists and other scientists and engineers in related fields. SHAPE probabilistically estimates the time-dependent, source components of seismic hazard, namely the magnitude distribution and the seismic activity rates, expressed jointly as changes in the exceedance probability of a given magnitude within a predefined period. Alternatively, the changes of the mean return period of a given magnitude is evaluated in moving time windows. Four different magnitude distribution models are included (unbounded and truncated Gutenberg-Richter law and non-parametric kernel). Interactive parameter selection and data filtering routines are also incorporated in the package.The presentation will cover the capabilities of SHAPE and a demonstration of selected examples from published and ongoing case studies:Mining induced seismicity at Rudna Mine, Poland.
Seismicity triggered by water reservoir impoundment in Song Trahn 2 artificial lake, Vietnam.
Tidal triggering of microseismicity recorded by an ocean bottom seismometer network in the equatorial mid-Atlantic ridge.
The SHAPE package is developed in two standalone versions (an interactive Graphical User Interface version and a function) as well an online version, integrated in the Thematic Core Service Anthropogenic Hazards (TCS-AH) of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS). The standalone versions can be downloaded for free from a public repository.
Implications of 1.50C global warming for agricultural productivity over a global rice exporting region in Central India
Authors: Tyagi Shoobhangi , Sahany Sandeep , Saraswat Dharmendra , Mishra Saroj Kanta , Dubey Amlendu , Niyogi Dev
Published: February 2023

Water, food, and energy security are the major climate risks of global warming. The Paris Agreement proposed an ambitious target of limiting the rise in global mean surface temperature to well below 20C, and preferably to 1.50C, compared to the pre-industrial era. However, the implication of this policy discourse on the agricultural system is imperative for ensuring food security in the face of global warming. This research focuses on understanding the changes in water availability and rice productivity under 1.50C global warming over a global rice-exporting semi-arid watershed in Central India. Towards this goal, the mean climate under 1.50C of global warming was computed for 21 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) Global Climate models (GCMs). For each GCM, the corresponding changes in blue-green water availability and rice productivity at 1.50C warming period were estimated under two global warming scenarios (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) based on the semi-distributed Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Results suggest that the green and blue water is projected to change by ~ -20% to 10 and ~ -50 to 20%, respectively. The rice yield is projected to reduce in the range of 5% to 50%, with an increase in local temperature (~10C) and a decrease in local precipitation (~20%) being the limiting factor. This study provides useful information on when the 1.50C global warming could reach and how it can affect the agricultural productivity of semi-arid watersheds across different global warming scenarios. This study will help develop appropriate strategies to reduce/alleviate the impacts of global warming and foster food security at the watershed-scale.   
Making complex climate information available for a stakeholder dialogue: the Climate Monitor for Northern Germany
Authors: Benninghoff Markus , Sommer Philipp S. , Baldewein Linda , Meinke Insa
Published: February 2023

Climate research in Northern Germany provides important information to enable adaption to climate change. However, the increasing complexity and the amount of data that needs to be processed makes the information inaccessible for external parties outside of the climate modeling community. Since 2007 the Coastal and Climate Office for Northern Germany at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon has maintained a long term stakeholder dialogue. In this context, we make knowledge on coastal climate research available to the public, and to decision-makers. Our range of stakeholders consists of adjacent scientific research groups, interested individuals, governmental bodies, non-governmental organizations, media, education and more.Web applications, such as the Climate Monitor for Northern Germany, play a central role in our efforts to transfer scientific knowledge to our stakeholders. Originally released in 2014, the monitor comprehends data derived from freely available climate datasets of the last few decades, such as CoastDat, eOBS, CRU TS and more. We provide derived climate information for the most-requested parameters, namely temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, cloudiness, and vegetation but also analyze indices on extremes such as heat, severe rain fall and storms. We answer the questions of our regional stakeholders, e.g. “How does a changing climate affect our interests?”, by visualizing spatial averages (municipality to state-level scale), as well as comprehensive, interactive and comparable time-series and a descriptive interpretation of both. This tool has been proven to be a valuable asset in stakeholder communication and allows everyone to access crucial climate information for their region of interest.In our latest release we take user needs into account and redesign the front-end using a mixture of open-source libraries and OGC services provided by ESRI. With the re-design we introduce interactive webmaps and apps, intended to simplify navigability through this complex theme and its far-reaching visualization collection. We aim to increase user engagement through a familiar user interface, consistent with similar web applications. Our data processing pipelines have been streamlined to make the results conform to the FAIR principles. Besides the visual representation of the results, we provide download options for the raw data, and the computational methods are published open-source in the form of Jupyter notebooks. We focus on ease of maintenance, accessibility and on instantaneous publication of the latest results. In this presentation we highlight the workflows and experiences behind creating this user centric web tool, and discuss where we see the benefits of integrating web tools in knowledge transfer.
Sorption and desorption controls on alanine bioavailability in volcanic soils
Authors: Kitagawa Natsuko , Watanabe Tetsuhiro , Sawada Kozue , Kunito Takashi , Funakawa Shinya
Published: February 2023

Recent studies have shown that mineral-associated organic N is an important source of bioavailable N, and organic N sorption to/desorption from clay minerals may be a key factor of N dynamics in soils. This study aims to elucidate the importance of sorption/desorption to the mineralization of amino acids in volcanic soils. We hypothesized that in volcanic soils, sorption of amino acid to minerals reduces its mineralization and that desorption of amino acid differs reflecting soil properties.Soils sampled from the O, A, and B horizons of three volcanic soils were used. Incubation experiments using the tracer method were carried out to assess the mineralization of alanine, which was used as a representative amino acid in the soil. Soils were placed in glass jars and were amended with 13C labeled alanine at a rate of 1% of total N to investigate the effects of alanine sorption on its mineralization. Similarly, separate soils were amended with 13C labeled alanine sorbed to iron oxides to examine the desorption of alanine. The percentage of mineralization of the added alanine over 7 days of incubation was determined. Acid oxalate extractable Al and Fe (Alo and Feo) of soil were measured as representative clay mineral components contributing to sorption. Sorption isotherm experiments were carried out to understand each soil’s sorption characteristics, and the results were fitted to Freundlich’s sorption equation.The percentage of mineralization of free alanine was the highest in O horizon soils at 40% and showed a decreasing trend going down the soil profile. The mineralization of alanine sorbed to iron oxides was approximately 56% of that of free alanine, regardless of the soil properties. Our results suggest that approximately 44% of the sorbed alanine was strongly sorbed to the iron oxides, but the remaining alanine was easily desorbed and mineralized similarly to free alanine. Freundlich-k constants were correlated with both Alo and Feo content and mineralization of alanine (r = 0. 70, P < 0.05, r = −0.63, P < 0.05, respectively). Furthermore, based on the fitted Freundlich’s equation, the amount of alanine that was sorbed of the added alanine in the incubation experiment was calculated, and the results indicated that alanine mineralization was strongly correlated with the ratio of sorbed to added alanine (r = −0.95, P < 0.001).We conclude that the desorption of sorbed alanine was constant regardless of soil properties and that sorption reduced alanine mineralization rather than delaying it.
Inter-seasonal terrestrial-atmospheric drivers of flash drought over Europe
Authors: Mesheske Daniel , Christian Jordan , Basara Jeff
Published: February 2023

Anthropogenic climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of climactic extremes across Europe. With rising temperatures, the impacts of a severe or prolonged agricultural drought could yield devastating financial costs. As such, indicators that predict future drought could mitigate risk and damage. This study explores the seasonal and inter-seasonal relationships between land surface variables using linear regression and correlation analysis. Data from MERRA-2, between 1980 and 2020, were used for temperature, ET, PET, and soil moisture. ET and PET were used to derive the Standardized Evaporative Stress Ratio (SESR), which is a metric that incorporates several near-surface state variables to represent evaporative stress on the environment. It is shown through regression modeling that higher mean temperatures lead to increased evaporative stress and reduced root zone soil moisture throughout much of Europe during spring, summer, and fall. Correlation values yielded a strong negative relationship consistent with the known characteristics between temperature, evaporative stress, and soil moisture. Further, lag-regression analysis between subsequent seasons demonstrated strong negative correlations for mean temperature and mean SESR ratio for both a spring-summer and summer-fall seasonal lag across much of the European continent. In addition, many of these correlations show statistical significance above 90%. Finally, this study identified a similar relationship between root zone soil moisture with temperature and SESR yielding correlation at elevated levels of statistical significance indicating that springtime temperature may be a critical precursor to growing season flash drought development.  
Transient signal-based quantification of earthquake triggering effects on nearby faults using rate and state friction
Authors: Sopacı Eyüp , Özacar A. Arda
Published: February 2023

Both numerical simulations and observational pieces of evidence suggest that the earthquake triggering mechanism depends non-linearly on time. The rate and state friction (RSF) demonstrate these dependencies with a changing weight of healing and weakening terms during its state's evolution. A clock advance due to a nearby rupture using the RSF models either agrees well with the Coulomb's static failure during the fault healing stage or becomes highly susceptible to velocity changes when the failure is imminent. Here we aim to formulate an analytical relation for earthquake triggering effects on nearby faults using transient signals. The dynamic mechanical weakening on the fault interface is quantified as a function of a transient oscillatory signal's peak ground velocity (PGV) and peak spectral frequency (PSF), elastic properties of the fault, and different state weakening terms. So far, the tested numerical simulations show a good agreement with our proposed analytical approach. As a case study, nearby seismic waveforms recorded during the M6.4 (04.07.2019) event that preceded the larger  M7.1 (06.07.2019) Ridgecrest earthquake are used to calculate mechanical weakening, which correlates well with the computed PGV values attenuating with distance. The results support that if inadequate instrumentation exists, those dynamic weakening effects can be approximated empirically using the source parameter of the triggering event as a function of distance and directivity. Derivation of this analytical relation with additional verifications from numerical simulations will contribute to simultaneously including dynamic and static effects. This may lead to a more realistic estimation of increased seismic risk on nearby faults after an earthquake.  
Inter-annual variability in the response of soil respiration to elevated CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere
Authors: Douwes Dekker Nine , Pendall Elise , Hamilton Liz , Barba Josep , Pihlblad Johanna , Mackenzie Robert , Kourmouli Angeliki , Yamulki Sirwan , Gauci Vincent , Ullah Sami
Published: February 2023

In this research we consider the response of soil respiration under elevated CO2 (eCO2) in an oak-dominated temperate forest. We hypothesised that under elevated CO2 (550 ppm) soil moisture would increase as a result of reduced stomatal conductance, which would in turn lead to higher soil respiration. Continuous measurements were performed on three pairs of plots near Stafford (United Kingdom). Respiration was measured diurnally for 2 minutes each time, using the LI-COR 8100A set-up, and the rate of respiration (flux rate) was calculated SoilFluxPro software. Next, an empirical model was fitted to the dataset based on hourly averages of the flux rates, soil temperature, and soil moisture. Three respiration collars per plot were averaged, thus accounting for spatial variability within the site. Model parameterization and gap filling were conducted on individual plots to calculate annual rates for 2019-2021. Cross-validation was performed by using 80% (randomly selected) of each dataset for training and the remaining 20% for testing the data against the parameters obtained by the empirical models. Preliminary results suggest that annual respiration rates were significantly higher for the eCO2 across all pairs in 2019. However, 2 out of 3 pairs in 2020 and 2021 showed significantly higher respiration for the aCO2 plots compared to eCO2, which is not in line with our hypothesis. Relationships with soil moisture and temperature help to explain what drives the difference in these fluxes. Our findings show that the relationship between higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and soil respiration is not a straightforward one, which is of interest when considering the role of forest C-cycling on a global scale.
I3S, an OGC 3D Streaming Standard Enabling Geospatial Interoperability and Composability
Authors: Belayneh Tamrat
Published: February 2023

Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S), an OGC Community Standard for streaming and storing massive amounts of geospatial content has been rapidly evolving to capture new use cases and techniques to advance geospatial visualization and analysis. As an OGC Community Standard, I3S has been evolving over the last 4 years adopting new use cases and capability. The current version of OGC I3S 1.3 adopted in Dec. 2022 enables efficient transmission of various 3D geospatial data types including discrete 3D objects with attributes, integrated surface meshes and point cloud data covering vast geographic areas as well as highly detailed BIM (Building Information Model) content, to web browsers, mobile apps and desktop.As an open standard, I3S has been embraced by the Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) Community for streaming massive 3D geospatial content. Enabling composition of 3d geospatial content covering different disciplines and use cases is the strength of I3S. In this paper, we’ll describe and demonstrate, including via applicable code snippets and sandcastles, I3S consumption in popular web-based 3D visualization applications such as loaders.gl and CesiumJS. 
Holocene forest-cover changes in Europe - a comparison of dynamic vegetation model results and pollen-based REVEALS reconstructions
Authors: Dallmeyer Anne , Poska Anneli , Marquer Laurent , Seim Andrea , Gaillard-Lemdahl Marie-José
Published: February 2023

We compare Holocene forest-cover changes in Europe derived from a transient MPI-ESM1.2 simulation with high spatial resolution time-slice simulations conducted in LPJ-GUESS and pollen-based quantitative reconstructions of forest cover based on the REVEALS model (pol-RVs). The dynamic vegetation models and pol-RVs agree with respect to the general temporal trends in forest cover for most parts of Europe, with a large forest cover during the mid-Holocene and substantially smaller forest cover closer to the present time. However, the age of the start of decrease in forest cover varies between regions, and is much older in the pol-RVs than in the models. The pol-RVs suggest much earlier anthropogenic deforestation than the prescribed land-use in the models starting 2000 years ago. While LPJ-GUESS generally overestimates forest cover compared to pol-RVs, MPI-ESM indicates lower percentages of forest cover than pol-RVs, particularly in Central Europe. A comparison of the simulated climate with chironomid-based climate reconstructions reveal that model-data mismatches in forest cover are in most cases not driven by biases in the climate. Instead, sensitivity experiments show that the model results strongly depend on the models tuning regarding natural disturbance regimes (e.g. fire and wind throw). The frequency and strength of disturbances are – like most of the parameters in the vegetation models – static and calibrated to modern conditions. However, these parameter values may not be valid during climate and vegetation states totally different from today’s. In particular, the mid-Holocene natural forests were probably more stable and less sensitive to disturbances than present day forests that are heavily altered by human interventions. Our analysis highlights the fact that such model settings are inappropriate for paleo-simulations and complicate model-data comparisons with additional challenges. Moreover, our study suggests that land-use is the main driver of forest decline in Europe during the mid- and late-Holocene.
Significant Role of Internal Climate Variability for the Global Warming Hot-spots in the Northern Hemisphere
Authors: Kim Hye-Yeon , Song Eun-Ji , Kwon Min-Ho , Kim Baek-Min
Published: February 2023

The origin of characteristic increase of continental-scale summer surface temperature in decades over Northern hemisphere was investigated. July-temperature in Europe, East Asia, the North Pacific, and western North America have been undergoing more increase than the global average of about 1ºC increase, especially in recent years. On the contrary, MME of 37 CMIP5 models do not show the focused regional warming hot-spots but exhibits hemispheric surface temperature increase. From the comparison between GISTEMP observation record and CMIP5 MME historical data, we show an evidence that the observed characteristic increase of regional temperature for the recent 43 years is dominated by the Internal Climate Variability (ICV) of decadal time-scale. Performing EOF analysis on the ICV, the four dominant modes are identified as Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Pacific Oscillation (NPO), Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM), and Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). It is also shown that, with only two dominant modes among those modes, large portion of continental-scale temperature increase can be explained: We show that PDO and PMM are dominant modes in Europe and East Asia, NPO and AMO in the North Pacific, and PDO and NP in western North America. The observed sub-trend is nicely reproduced with only these two modes. Quantitatively, the observed sub-trend from ICV explains 73%, 60%, 55%, and 18% of the total variability in North Pacific, East Asia, western North America and Europe, respectively. Note that, despite 82% of temperature fluctuation in Europe is attributed by the external forcing, 18% of the internal variability is still important to explain the increasing number of extreme heat events in Europe in recent several decades.
Performance of natural mangrove structure in downstream velocity reduction as compared to engineered porcupine and geobag structure using OpenFOAM
Authors: Kakati Riddick , Dutta Subashisa , Dwivedy Santosha
Published: February 2023

Bank erosion is a regular occurrence along most rivers. In low-income nations such as India and Bangladesh, economical engineered structures such as porcupines and geobags have been used to counteract such erosions. Nonetheless, at times of extreme flooding, these structures often become unstable and are subsequently washed away, thereby failing to protect the banks. Vetiver grass, which ties the soil with its roots, is a natural method for preventing bank erosion. However, its flexible structure is unable to significantly reduce velocity. In this study, the OpenFOAM open-source hydrodynamic model was used to assess the efficacy of mangrove root structure in reducing flow velocity. It has been compared to single screen porcupine, dual screen porcupine, and geobag structure in terms of performance in downstream flow velocity reduction. It was observed that single screen porcupine was the least effective at reducing velocity (0.32 %), followed by dual screen porcupine (3.63 %) and single geobag (5.66 %). On the other hand, the mangrove structure was able to lower downstream velocity by 14.26%. In terms of its downstream influence, the single screen porcupine had its influence upto 3.63 cm, followed by dual screen porcupine with 5.53 cm, and single geobag with 13.03 cm. The mangrove structure influence zone on the other hand was very close to the geobag structure (11.53 cm). With its greater velocity reduction capabilities and a considerable zone of influence, mangrove plantations on riverbanks may therefore function as a cost-effective and ecologically sustainable soil erosion management strategy.
International Natural Disasters Research and Analytics (INDRA) Reporter: A multi-platform Citizen Science Framework and Tools for Disaster Risk Reduction
Authors: Saharia Manabendra , Saharia Dhiraj , Gupta Shreya , Singhal Satyakam
Published: February 2023

With pervasive access to mobile phones with powerful sensors and processors, crowdsourcing has become increasingly prominent as a means of supplementing data obtained from traditional sensors. But there is a lack of a comprehensive application programming interface (API)-based framework that can collect data from multiple sources through user-friendly workflows. INDRA Reporter has been designed with a mobile-first approach geared towards real-time applications and an emphasis on user-interface/user-experience (UI/UX) to maximize collection of higher fidelity data. This paper details a comprehensive suite of tools for active and passive crowdsensing of natural hazards such as floods, storm, lightning, rain etc. Currently the framework includes mobile applications, telegram chatbots, and a publicly available dashboard. Most citizen science applications in flooding are quantitative, which makes it difficult for non-specialists to provide accurate scientific information along with providing user insight into prevailing situation within a single coherent workflow. It is imperative that workflows targeting dangerous situations emphasize on speed and visual acuity while collecting critical data.  The main objective of INDRA is to provide a simple and intuitive way of collecting qualitative and quantitative data from people. Since traditional data collection through ground-based sensors and satellites suffer from various limitations, measurements collected using INDRA will supplement these sources and form the basis of developing multi-sensor data products. We are reporting the development and release of four components of the framework – a) open INDRA API b) INDRA Reporter mobile application, c) Telegram Chat bot, and d) web dashboard. The API has been kept extensible in order to expand the data collection to other hydrologic and meteorological phenomenon.