A gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the nineteenth century to modern scientific breakthroughs Antarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination. The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the pioneering nineteenth-century voyages, when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica's glacial rim for unknown lands beyond. These intrepid Victorian explorers-James Ross, Dumont D'Urville, and Charles Wilkes-laid the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita. Today, the white continent poses new challenges, as scientists race to uncover Earth's climate history, which is recorded in the south polar ice and ocean floor, and to monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens to inundate coastal cities worldwide. Interweaving the breakthrough research of the modern Ocean Drilling Program with the dramatic discovery tales of its Victorian forerunners, Gillen D'Arcy Wood describes Antarctica's role in a planetary drama of plate tectonics, climate change, and species evolution stretching back more than thirty million years. An original, multifaceted portrait of the polar continent emerges, illuminating our profound connection to Antarctica in its past, present, and future incarnations. A deep-time history of monumental scale, Land of Wondrous Cold brings the remotest of worlds within close reach-an Antarctica vital to both planetary history and human fortunes.

The chapters in this book explore the range of physical and social attributes that have shaped and re-shaped our landscapes through time. International authors have contributed the latest results of investigating ancient landscapes (or "palaeolandscapes") in diverse settings of tropical forests, deserts, river deltas, remote islands, coastal zones, and continental interiors. The case studies embrace a liberal approach of combining archaeological evidence with other avenues of research in earth sciences, biology, and social relations. The chapters offer new perspectives on what the world's palaeolandscapes looked like, how people lived in these places, and how communities have engaged with long-term change in their natural and cultural environments though successive centuries and millennia. This book reaches across archaeology, ecology, geography, and broader studies of human-environment relations that will appeal to general readers. Specialists and students in these fields will find extra value in the primary datasets and in the new ideas and perspectives. It also provides unique examples from the past, toward understanding the workings of sustainable landscape systems.

This book looks at global atmospheric processes from a physical standpoint using available current and past observational data taken from measurements of relevant atmospheric parameters. It describes various aspects of the current atmospheric state and its future evolution, focusing primarily on the energetic balance of the Earth and atmosphere, and taking into consideration the multi-faceted global equilibrium between these two systems, carbon, and water. The analysis presented in this book restricts itself to those objects and processes that allow us to obtain reliable conclusions and numerical estimations, in contrast to current climate models with much larger numbers of parameters for describing the same problems. As a result, in spite of the roughness of numerical parameters, the book unveils a reliable and transparent physical picture of energetic phenomena in the global atmosphere. In particular, it shows that approximately only one-fourth of atmospheric water returns from the atmosphere to the Earth in the form of free molecules. It was shown that the contemporary warming of our planet has an anthropogenic character, and that the average global temperature increases due to an increase of the concentration of atmospheric CO2 molecules, via an increase in atmospheric moisture, as well as an increase in the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere. Accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide plays a subsidiary role in this process and gives approximately one-third in a change of the global temperature, while an increase in the amount of atmospheric water by as little as only 0.3% per year explains the observed warming of the Earth. The book shows how the greenhouse instability of the atmosphere evidently has its origins in the Eocene epoch, presenting an analysis of the influence of various types of global energetic processes on the climate that differs from the official stance on these problems.

Life on our planet depends upon having a climate that changes within narrow limits - not too hot for the oceans to boil away nor too cold for the planet to freeze over. Over the past billion years Earth's average temperature has stayed close to 14-15 DegreesC, oscillating between warm greenhouse states and cold icehouse states. We live with variation, but a variation with limits. Paleoclimatology is the science of understanding and explaining those variations, those limits, and the forces that control them. Without that understanding we will not be able to foresee future change accurately as our population grows. Our impact on the planet is now equal to a geological force, such that many geologists now see us as living in a new geological era - the Anthropocene. Paleoclimatology describes Earth's passage through the greenhouse and icehouse worlds of the past 800 million years, including the glaciations of Snowball Earth in a world that was then free of land plants. It describes the operation of the Earth's thermostat, which keeps the planet fit for life, and its control by interactions between greenhouse gases, land plants, chemical weathering, continental motions, volcanic activity, orbital change and solar variability. It explains how we arrived at our current understanding of the climate system, by reviewing the contributions of scientists since the mid-1700s, showing how their ideas were modified as science progressed. And it includes reflections based on the author's involvement in palaeoclimatic research. The book will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about future climate change. It will be an invaluable course reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students in geology, climatology, oceanography and the history of science. "A real tour-de-force! An outstanding summary not only of the science and what needs to be done, but also the challenges that are a consequence of psychological and cultural baggage that threatens not only the survival of our own species but the many others we are eliminating as well." Peter Barrett Emeritus Professor of Geology, Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand "What a remarkable and wonderful synthesis... it will be a wonderful source of [paleoclimate] information and insights." Christopher R. Scotese Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Climate change is the single most important global environmental and development issue facing the world today and has emerged as a major topic in tourism studies. Climate change is already affecting the tourism industry and is anticipated to have profound implications for tourism in the twenty-first century, including consumer holiday choices, the geographic patterns of tourism demand, the competitiveness and sustainability of destinations and the contribution of tourism to international development.

Tourism and Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the theory and practice of climate change and tourism at the tourist, enterprise, destination and global scales. Major themes include the implications of climate change and climate policy for tourism sectors and destinations around the world, tourist perceptions of climate change impacts, tourism 's global contribution to climate change, adaptation and mitigation responses by all major tourism stakeholders, and the integral links between climate change and sustainable tourism. It combines a thorough scientific assessment of the climate-tourism interrelationships with discussion of emerging mitigation and adaptation practice, showcasing international examples throughout the tourism sector as well as actions by other sectors that will have important implications for tourism.

Written by three leading academics in this field, this critical contribution highlights the challenges of climate change within the tourism community and provides a foundation for decision making for both reducing the risks, and taking advantage of the opportunities, associated with climate change. This comprehensive discussion of the complexities of climate change and tourism is essential reading for students, academics, business leaders and government policy makers.

This book traces the evolution of climate change research, which, long dominated by the natural sciences, now sees greater involvement with disciplines studying the socio-cultural implications of change. In their introduction, the editors chart the changing role of the social and cultural sciences, delineating three strands of research: socio-critical approaches which connect climate change to a call for cultural or systemic change; a mitigation and adaption strand which takes the physical reality of climate change as a starting point, and focuses on the concerns of climate change-affected communities and their participation in political action; and finally, culture-sensitive research which places emphasis on indigenous peoples, who contribute the least to the causes of climate change, who are affected most by its consequences, and who have the least leverage to influence a solution. Part I of the book explores interdisciplinarity, climate research and the role of the social sciences, including the concept of ecological novelty, an assessment of progress since the first Rio climate conference, and a 'global village' case study from Portugal. Part II surveys ethnographic perspectives in the search for social facts of global climate change, including climate and mobility in the West African Sahel, and human-non human interactions and climate change in the Canadian Subarctic. Part III shows how collaborative and comparative ethnographies can spin "global webs of local knowledge," describing case studies of changing seasonality in Labrador and of rising water levels in the Chesapeake Bay. These perspectives are subjected to often-amusing, always incisive analysis in a concluding chapter entitled "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet: a death-defying look at the future of the climate debate." The contributors engage critically with the research subject of 'climate change' itself, reflecting on their own practices of knowledge production and epistemological presuppositions. Finely detailed and sympathetic to a broad range of viewpoints, the book sets out a profile for the social sciences and humanities in the climate change field by systematically exploring methodological and theoretical challenges and approaches.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of numerical weather prediction (NWP), focusing on the application of the spectral method in NWP models. The author illustrates the use of the spectral method in theory as well as in its application to building a full prototypical spectral NWP model, from the formulation of continuous model equations through development of their discretized forms to coded statements of the model. The author describes the implementation of a specific model PEAK (Primitive-Equation Atmospheric Research Model Kernel) to illustrate the steps needed to construct a global spectral NWP model. The book brings together all the spectral, time and vertical discretization aspects relevant for such a model. Spectral Numerical Weather Prediction Models provides readers with the information necessary to construct spectral NWP models, a self-contained, well-documented, coded spectral NWP model and theoretical and practical exercises, some of which include solutions."

The book attempts to provide a consistent treatment climate variability at time scales longer than interannual. The first describes the observed decadal variability when there are sufficient observational data for analysis, identifying the major phenomena that are mainly involved. The second part contains contributions describing the present level of understanding of decadal variability. Researchers and students will find the book useful as a reference, and scientists in related disciplines (geology, biogeochemistry, paleoclimatology) will have an overview of current knowledge.

This book focuses on the application of virtual reality (VR) technology in mining machinery. It gives a detailed introduction to the application of VR technology in virtual assembly, virtual planning, and virtual monitoring. Based on the theory of digital twin, VR technology and collaborative control technology are applied to coal mining machinery equipment, which lays a foundation for the digitalization and intellectualization of coal machinery equipment and broadens the application scope of virtual reality technology in the mechanical engineering field. Through the application of VR technology in coal machinery equipment, this book provides new methods and ideas for teaching activities, scientific research activities, and actual production with rich illustrations, related table introduction, unique research ideas, and other unique contents. This book could be a useful reference for researchers in mining machinery, simulation and modeling, computer-aided engineering (CAD and CAE) and design, visualization, mechanical engineering, and other disciplines.

This volume tells the story of shy Quaker Luke Howard, and his pioneering work in 1802 to define what had hitherto seemed random and mysterious structures - clouds. It also focuses on other issues of the day, such as religion, aesthetics and literature.

Marine biogeography, the study of the spatial distribution of organisms in the world's oceans, is one of the most fascinating branches of oceanography. This book continues the pioneering research into the distributions of molluscan faunas, first studied by biologists over 160 years ago. It illustrates 1778 species of gastropods in full color, many of which are extremely rare and poorly known endemic species that are illustrated for the first time outside of their original descriptions. The spatial arrangements of malacofaunas shown in this book can be considered proxies for worldwide oceanic conditions and used as tools for determining patterns of global climate change. The book's documentation of evolutionary "hot spots" and geographically restricted endemic faunas can also be used as a base line for future studies on patterns of environmental deterioration and extinction in the marine biosphere. Documenting the evolution of the amazingly rich worldwide gastropod fauna, this book will appeal to physical and chemical oceanographers, systematic and evolutionary biologists, historical geologists, paleontologists, climatologists, geomorphologists, and physical geographers. The authors incorporate aspects of all of these disciplines into a new classification system for the nomenclature of biogeographical spatial units found in tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate seas.

The portending process of climate change, induced by the anthropogenic accumulations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is likely to generate effects that will cascade through the biosphere, impacting all life on earth and bearing upon human endeavors. Of special concern is the potential effect on agriculture and global food security.Anticipating these effects demands that scientists widen their field of vision and cooperate across disciplines to encompass increasingly complex interactions. Trans-disciplinary cooperation should aim to generate effective responses to the evolving risks, including actions to mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gases and to adapt to those climate changes that cannot be avoided.This handbook presents an exposition of current research on the impacts, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change in relation to agroecosystems. It is offered as the first volume in what is intended to be an ongoing series dedicated to elucidating the interactions of climate change with a broad range of sectors and systems, and to developing and spurring effective responses to this global challenge. As the collective scientific and practical knowledge of the processes and responses involved continues to grow, future volumes in the series will address important aspects of the topic periodically over the coming years.

This book is intended to give an introduction into the meteorological boundary conditions for power generation from the wind, onshore and offshore. It is to provide reliable meteorological information for the planning and running of this important kind of renewable energy. This includes the derivation of wind laws and wind profile descriptions, especially those above the logarithmic surface layer. Winds over complex terrain and nocturnal low-level jets are considered as well. A special chapter is devoted to the efficiency of large wind parks and their wakes.

Written by internationally recognized experts in atmospheric research, this book focuses on the state of the art in topical environmental issues such as global change, forest decline, ozone depletion and acid rain. Our present knowledge of forest damage is summarized as an example of atmospheric impact on nature. Paul Crutzen, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, tackles the question of how the changing chemical composition of the atmosphere influences global chemistry and climate. The future environmental impact of traffic is described from the point of view of the motor industry. These and other contributions illustrate the interaction which exists between atmosphere, technology and nature.

This book is a completely rewritten, updated and expanded new edition of the original Global Perspectives on Tropical Cyclones published in 1995. It presents a comprehensive review of the state of science and forecasting of tropical cyclones together with the application of this science to disaster mitigation, hence the tag: From Science to Mitigation.Since the previous volume, enormous progress in understanding tropical cyclones has been achieved. These advances range from the theoretical through to ever more sophisticated computer modeling, all underpinned by a vast and growing range of observations from airborne, space and ocean observation platforms. The growth in observational capability is reflected by the inclusion of three new chapters on this topic. The chapter on the effects of climate change on tropical cyclone activity is also new, and appropriate given the recent intense debate on this issue. The advances in the understanding of tropical cyclones which have led to significant improvements in forecasting track, intensity, rainfall and storm surge, are reviewed in detail over three chapters. For the first time, a chapter on seasonal prediction is included. The book concludes with an important chapter on disaster mitigation, which is timely given the enormous loss of life in recent tropical cyclone disasters.World Scientific Series on Asia-Pacific Weather and Climate is indexed in SCOPUS.

This unique book includes 250 maps related to various factors of meteorology and climate and their effects on the African continent. It provides detailed coverage of fundamentally important issues concerning African meterology, climatology, tropical circulation, rainfall, drought and climate change.

Volume 1 of a three-volume final report describes, synthesizes and analyzes the results of the four-year Integrated Research Project CIRCE - Climate Change and Impact Research: Mediterranean Environment, funded by the EU 6th Framework Programme. Conducted under the auspices of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome, Italy, CIRCE was designed to predict and to quantify the physical impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean, and to assess the most influential consequences for the region's population. This volume incorporates the first two parts of the report, reviewing current knowledge of observed climate variability and trends in the Mediterranean, and including descriptions of available temperature and precipitation station and gridded data sets.

Originally published in 1955 Atmospheric Turbulence examines dynamic meteorology and the fundamental part it plays in the overall science of meteorology. The book examines the theory of atmospheric turbulence as a more mathematically developed area than largescale motions of the atmosphere and examines its significance in economic, military and industrial spheres. The book focuses on the effect and importance of atmospheric turbulence, not only to meteorologists, but the designers of large aircraft. The book addresses the effects of turbulence and the properties of the atmosphere that can be found closer to the ground. This book will be of interest to atmospheric physicists and meteorologists.

Within the realm of the newly evolving discipline of environmental sciences, the stable-isotope methodology is being used to an ever-increasing extent, especially in the study of the water cycle and of paleo-climatology. This book introduces the rules of the game, by reviewing the natural variability of stable isotopes in the hydrosphere, describing the physico-chemical basis of isotope fractionation, and applying this knowledge to natural waters as they move through the hydrologic cycle from the ocean to the atmosphere, the biosphere and the lithosphere. There is a special focus on the processes at the surface-atmosphere and land-biosphere-atmosphere interfaces, since these are the sites of major changes in isotope composition. In response to the increasing awareness of our changing climate, a discussion on the global view of the changing water cycle, in the past and future, winds up the presentation.

This overview of global warming and its human causes examines the international agreements regarding climate change and the U.S. response to those agreements, as well as key provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, to explain the difficulties of any subsequent treaties. Framing the scientific debate against moral, ethical, and religious considerations, the book offers potential solutions. It features seven maps and tables, index, bibliography, and notes.

This book presents a comprehensive introduction to weather processes and climatic conditions around the world, their observed variability and changes, and projected future trends. Extensively revised and updated, this ninth edition retains its tried and tested structure while incorporating recent advances in the field. From clear explanations of the basic physical and chemical principles of the atmosphere, to descriptions of regional climates and their changes, the book presents a comprehensive coverage of global meteorology and climatology. In this new edition the latest scientific ideas are again expressed in a clear, non-mathematical matter.

New features include:

• extended and updated treatment of atmospheric models
• final chapter on climate variability and change has been completely rewritten to take account of the IPCC 2007 scientific assessment.
• new four-colour text design featuring over 30 colour plates
• over 360 diagrams have been redrawn in full colour to improve clarity and aid understanding.

Atmosphere, Weather and Climate continues to be an indispensable source for all those studying the earth s atmosphere and world climate, whether from environmental and earth sciences, geography, ecology, agriculture, hydrology, or related disciplinary perspectives. Its pedagogic value is enhanced by several features: learning points at the opening of each chapter and discussion topics at their ending, boxes on topical subjects and on twentieth century advances in the field.

This book proposes the tool change methods for the excessive tool wear in the construction rules of shield tunnel construction in China. From the perspective of shield tunneling, atmospheric pressure tool change, pressure opening and tool change, and other special techniques, the tool change technologies are proposed. It highlights a number of tool-changing techniques and research and development work, including pressure-changing tools, tool-changing tools in the tool-cylinder arm, and cutter-tooth cutter inter-change since the beginning of the construction of the Nanjing Yangtze River Tunnel.

The Erice International Seminars are multidisciplinary seminars attended by over 100 eminent participants from all fields of science. Each year, a few scientific issues are selected and experts are invited to present contrasting views during the plenary multidisciplinary sessions of the seminar. General debates soon follow. These sessions offer a unique opportunity for specialists to broaden their perspectives after being confronted with ideas and suggestions from high level scientists in complementary domains of science. Associated workshops allow the experts to further refine and process the ideas evoked during the seminar. This year's topics are focused on the World Energy Crisis and more specifically on the future of nuclear power, the sustainability of biofuels and nuclear waste. On Global Monitoring of the Planet we have focused on the climate change issue and specifically on the theoretical basis for model calculations, on vector-borne and air-borne particulates disseminating diseases and the crisis in internet security. A full day session was devoted to the Disarmament and Proliferation Regime, in collaboration with the Government of Italy and international institutions.

Examining a series of El Nino-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China; and Northeastern Brazil. All were affected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. But the effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. Davis argues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as the Third World were sown in this era of High Imperialism, as the price for capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions of peasants' lives.

The Earth's magnetosphere is part of our environment, and physical processes in the magnetosphere and coupling between the solar energy stream, the solar wind, and the magnetosphere are important to our understanding of our environment. Variations in the electromagnetic and particle energy output of the Sun have a significant effect on global changes. The energy transfer mechanisms at the dayside magnetospheric boundary layers and their ionospheric signatures may be even more important to solar-terrestrial research than the nightside processes. The dayside boundary layer and the polar cusps are the Earth's windows to outer space.