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Analysis of institutional authors

Ferrer, EstebanAuthor

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September 22, 2025
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Century-scale effect of climate change on meteorite falls

Publicated to: METEORITICS & PLANETARY SCIENCE. 60 (10): 2458-2468 - 2025-10-01 60(10), DOI: 10.1111/maps.70046

Authors:

Peña-Asensio, E; Vida, D; Cnossen, I; Ferrer, E
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Affiliations

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, England - Author
Politecn Milan, Dept Aerosp Sci & Technol, Via La Masa 34, I-20156 Milan, Italy - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Sch Aeronaut, ETSIAE UPM, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Western Ontario, Dept Phys & Astron, London, ON, Canada - Author
Univ Western Ontario, Inst Earth & Space Explorat, London, ON, Canada - Author
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Abstract

Climate change is inducing a global atmospheric contraction above the tropopause (similar to 10 km), leading to systematic decrease in neutral air density. The impact of climate change on small meteoroids has already been observed over the last two decades, with documented shifts in their ablation altitudes in the mesosphere (similar to 50-85 km) and lower thermosphere (similar to 85-120 km). This study evaluates the potential effect of these changes on meteorite-dropping fireballs, which typically penetrate the stratosphere (similar to 10-50 km). As a case study, we simulate the atmospheric entry of the fragile Winchcombe carbonaceous chondrite under projected atmospheric conditions for the year 2100 assuming a moderate future emission scenario. Using a semi-empirical fragmentation and ablation model, we compare the meteoroid's light curve and deceleration under present and future atmospheric density profiles. The results indicate a modest variation of the ablation heights, with the catastrophic fragmentation occurring 300 m lower and the luminous flight terminating 190 m higher. The absolute magnitude peak remains unchanged, but the fireball would appear 0.5 dimmer above similar to 120 km. The surviving meteorite mass is reduced by only 0.1 g. Our findings indicate that century-scale variations in atmospheric density caused by climate change moderately influence bright fireballs and have a minimal impact on meteorite survival.
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Keywords

HeightsModelRadar

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal METEORITICS & PLANETARY SCIENCE due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 41/101, thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Geochemistry & Geophysics. Notably, the journal is positioned en el Cuartil Q2 para la agencia Scopus (SJR) en la categoría Geophysics.

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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-24:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 3.

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 24.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 4 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 2 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/91458/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 42
  • Downloads: 81
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Antarctic; Canada; Italy; United Kingdom.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (Pena-Asensio, Eloy) and Last Author (FERRER VACCAREZZA, ESTEBAN).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Pena-Asensio, Eloy.

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Awards linked to the item

EP-A acknowledges financial support from the LUMIO project funded by the Agenzia SpazialeItaliana (2024-6-HH.0). DV was supported in part by the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office under cooperative agreement 80NSSC24M0060. IC was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Independent Research Fellowship (NE/R015651/1). EF acknowledges the funding received by the Grant DeepCFD (Project No. PID2022-137899OB-I00) funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF,EU. Open access publishing facilitated by Politecnico diMilano, as part of the Wiley - CRUI-CARE agreement.
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