The lAG International Symposium on Gravity, Geoid, and Space Missions 2004 (GGSM2004) was lield in the beautiful city of Porto, Portugal, from 30 August to 3 September 2004. This symposium encompassed the themes of Commission 2 (Gravity Field) of the newly structured lAG, as well as interdisciplinary topics related to geoid and gravity modeling, with special attention given to the current and planned gravi- dedicated satellite missions. The symposium also followed in the tradition of mid-term meetings that were held between the quadrennial joint meetings of the International Geoid and Gravity Commissions. The previous mid-term meetings were the International Symposia on Gravity, Geoid, and Marine Geodesy (Tokyo, 1996), and Gravity, Geoid, and Geodynamics (Banff, 2000). GGSM2004 aimed to bring together scientists from different areas in the geosciences, working with gravity and geoid related problems, both from the theoretical and practical points of view. Topics of interest included the integration of heterogeneous data and contributions from satellite and airborne techniques to the study of the spatial and temporal variations of the gravity field. In addition to the special focus on the CHAMP, GRACE, and GOCE satellite missions, attention was also directed toward projects addressing topographic and ice field mapping using SAR, LIDAR, and laser altimetry, as well as missions and studies related to planetary geodesy.

Due to their unique geophysical and geodynamic environment, both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions are often utilized for geodetic and geophysical observations. This book is a collection of papers on various aspects of the scientific investigation and observation techniques of the polar regions at both temporary and permanent observatories. Most papers focus on regional models based on data acquired in polar regions. Geodetic satellite positions systems (GNSS: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO) will also be discussed as well as other space techniques (DORIS, VLBI). Gravimetry, absolute gravimetry, and tidal gravimetry are also discussed, as well as seismology and meteorology. The book also touches on data analysis and geodynamic interpretation and discusses methods of constructing autonomous observatories.

Signi?cant technological advances have been few and far between in the past approximately one hundred years of soil survey activities. Perhaps one of the most innovative techniques in the history of soil survey was the introduction of aerial photographs as base maps for ?eld mapping, which replaced the conventional base map laboriously prepared by planetable and alidade. Such a relatively simple idea by today's standards revolutionized soil surveys by vastly increasing the accuracy and ef?ciently. Yet, even this innovative approach did not gain universal acceptance immediately and was hampered by a lack of aerial coverage of the world, funds to cover the costs, and in some cases a reluctance by some soil mappers and cartog- phers to change. Digital Soil Mapping (DSM), which is already being used and tested by groups of dedicated and innovative pedologists, is perhaps the next great advancement in delivering soil survey information. However, like many new technologies, it too has yet to gain universal acceptance and is hampered by ignorance on the part of some pedologists and other scientists. DSM is a spatial soil information system created by numerical models that - count for the spatial and temporal variations of soil properties based on soil - formation and related environmental variables (Lagacheric and McBratney, 2007).

The first volume of this work is organized in three levels, so that the portion and importance of thermodynamics and mathematics increase from level to level. The ground level shows that basics of phase equilibria can be understood without thermodynamics provided the concept of chemical potential is introduced early. The intermediate level introduces thermodynamics, culminating in the Gibbs energy as the arbiter for equilibrium. At the third level the accent is on binary systems, where one or more phases are solutions of the components. Priority is given throughout to the thermodynamic assessment of experimental data. 200 exercises are included with solutions.

An asteroid or comet will inevitably strike the Earth some day, and potentially cause great destruction. This volume considers hazards due to collisions with cosmic objects, particularly in light of recent investigations of impacts by the authors. Each chapter, written by an expert, contains an overview of an aspect and new findings in the field. Coverage describes and numerically estimates the main hazardous effects.

Based on an International Workshop held in New Delhi, India, this work should be of interest to all organizations and agencies interested in improved risk management in agriculture. In many parts of the world, weather and climate are one of the biggest production risks and uncertainty factors impacting on agricultural systems performance and management. Both structural and non-structural measures can be used to reduce the impacts of the variability (including extremes) of climate resources on crop production.

The need for tsunami research and analysis has grown dramatically following the devastating tsunami of December 2004, which affected Southern Asia. This book pursues a detailed theoretical and mathematical analysis of the fundamentals of tsunamis, especially the evolution and dynamics of tsunamis and other great waves. Of course, it includes specific measurement results from the 2004 tsunami, but the emphasis is on the nature of the waves themselves and their links to nonlinear phenomena.

This, the second edition of the hugely practical reference and handbook describes kinematic, static and dynamic Global Positioning System theory and applications. It is primarily based upon source-code descriptions of the KSGSoft program developed by the author and his colleagues and used in the AGMASCO project of the EU. This is the first book to report the unified GPS data processing method and algorithm that uses equations for selectively eliminated equivalent observations.

Clouds and cloud systems and their interactions with larger scales of motion, radiation, and the Earth's surface are extremely important parts of weather and climate systems. Their treatment in weather forecast and climate models is a significant source of errors and uncertainty. As computer power increases, it is beginning to be possible to explicitly resolve cloud and precipitation processes in these models, presenting opportunities for improving precipitation forecasts and larger-scale phenomena such as tropical cyclones which depend critically on cloud and precipitation physics.

This book by Professor Shouting Gao of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing and Xiaofan Li of NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Services (NESDIS) presents an update and review of results of high-resolution, mostly two-dimensional models of clouds and precipitation and their interactions with larger scales of motion and the Earth's surface. It provides a thorough description of cloud and precipitation physics, including basic governing equations and related physics, such as phase changes of water, radiation and mixing. Model results are compared with observations from the 1992-93 Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) experiment. The importance of the ocean to tropical convective systems is clearly shown here in the numerical results of simulations with their air-sea coupled modeling system. While the focus is on tropical convection, the methodology and applicability can be extended to cloud and precipitation processes elsewhere.

The results described in this well-written book form a solid foundation for future high-resolution model weather forecasts and climate simulations that resolve clouds explicitly in three dimensions-a future that has great promise for the understanding and prediction of weather and climate for the great benefit of society.

"Potential Theory in Applied Geophysics" introduces the principles of gravitational, magnetic, electrostatic, direct current electrical and electromagnetic fields, with detailed solutions of Laplace and electromagnetic wave equations by the method of separation of variables. Behaviour of the scalar and vector potential and the nature of the solutions of these boundary value problems are shown along with the use of complex variables and conformal transformation, Green's theorem, Green's functions and its use in integral equation. Finite element and finite difference methods for two-dimensional potential problems are discussed in considerable detail. The analytical continuation of the potential field and inverse theory, used for the interpretation of potential field data, are also demonstrated.

Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail, Or prone-descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds Pour a whole flood, and yet, its flame unquenched, Th'unconquerable lightning struggles through. Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls, And fires the mountains with redoubled rage. Black from the stroke, above, the smould'ring pine Stands a sad shattered trunk; and, stretched below, A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie. James Thompson, "The Seasons" (1727) have been investigating ball lightning for more than two decades. I published a ball lightning report in Nature in 1976 that received worldwide publicity and I consequently many people wrote to me with accounts of their own experiences. Within a very short time, I had accumulated about 200 firsthand accounts, and the file has continued to grow steadily since then. Several things impressed me. Few of those who wrote to me had any detailed foreknowledge of ball lightning at the time of their observation. Nonetheless, once reports of other phenomena such as St. Elmo's fire had been eliminated, the remaining descriptions were remarkably consistent. Furthermore, nearly all who contacted me were keen to have an explanation of what they had seen and seemed entirely sincere.

The last two subjects mentioned in the title "Wavelets" are so well established that they do not need any explanations. The first is related to them, but a short introduction is appropriate since the concept of wavelets emerged fairly recently. Roughly speaking, a wavelet decomposition is an expansion of an arbitrary function into smooth localized contributions labeled by a scale and a position pa rameter. Many of the ideas and techniques related to such expansions have existed for a long time and are widely used in mathematical analysis, theoretical physics and engineering. However, the rate of progress increased significantly when it was realized that these ideas could give rise to straightforward calculational methods applicable to different fields. The interdisciplinary structure (R.c.P. "Ondelettes") of the C.N .R.S. and help from the Societe Nationale Elf-Aquitaine greatly fostered these developments. This conference was held at the Centre National de Rencontres Mathematiques (C.I.R.M) in Marseille from December 14 to 18, 1987 and brought together an interdisciplinary mix of participants. We hope that these proceedings will convey to the reader some of the excitement and flavor of the meeting.

This is an introductory textbook on global spectral modeling designed for senior-level undergraduates and possibly for first-year graduate students. This text starts with an introduction to elementary finite-difference methods and moves on towards the gradual description of sophisticated dynamical and physical models in spherical coordinates. Computational aspects of the spectral transform method, the planetary boundary layer physics, the physics of precipitation processes in large-scale models, the radiative transfer including effects of diagnostic clouds and diurnal cycle, the surface energy balance over land and ocean, and the treatment of mountains are some issues that are addressed. The topic of model initialization includes the treatment of normal modes and physical processes. A concluding chapter covers the spectral energetics as a diagnostic tool for model evaluation. This revised second edition of the text also includes three additional chapters. Chapter 11 deals with the formulation of a regional spectral model for mesoscale modeling which uses a double Fourier expansion of data and model equations for its transform. Chapter 12 deals with ensemble modeling. This is a new and important area for numerical weather and climate prediction. Finally, yet another new area that has to do with adaptive observational strategies is included as Chapter 13. It foretells where data deficiencies may reside in model from an exploratory ensemble run of experiments and the spread of such forecasts.

This volume considers the role comets may have played in the origins and evolution of life. This is the only book dealing in depth with this subject. It is particularly relevant in light of recent investigations of Halley's comet, of new insights into organic synthesis in meteorites and comets, and of new results of numerical simulations of cometary orbits and impacts on Earth. The book is intended as a comprehensive review of current research.

The enormous progress over the last decades in our understanding of the mechanisms behind the complex system "Earth" is to a large extent based on the availability of enlarged data sets and sophisticated methods for their analysis. Univariate as well as multivariate time series are a particular class of such data which are of special importance for studying the dynamical p- cesses in complex systems. Time series analysis theory and applications in geo- and astrophysics have always been mutually stimulating, starting with classical (linear) problems like the proper estimation of power spectra, which hasbeenputforwardbyUdnyYule(studyingthefeaturesofsunspotactivity) and, later, by John Tukey. In the second half of the 20th century, more and more evidence has been accumulated that most processes in nature are intrinsically non-linear and thus cannot be su?ciently studied by linear statistical methods. With mat- matical developments in the ?elds of dynamic system's theory, exempli?ed by Edward Lorenz's pioneering work, and fractal theory, starting with the early fractal concepts inferred by Harold Edwin Hurst from the analysis of geoph- ical time series, nonlinear methods became available for time seriesanalysis as well. Over the last decades, these methods have attracted an increasing int- est in various branches of the earth sciences. The world's leading associations of geoscientists, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU) have reacted to these trends with the formation of special nonlinear focus groups and topical sections, which are actively present at the corresponding annual assemblies.

At a time when the polar regions are undergoing rapid and unprecedented change, understanding exchanges of momentum, heat and salt at the ice-ocean interface is critical for realistically predicting the future state of sea ice. By offering a measurement platform largely unaffected by surface waves, drifting sea ice provides a unique laboratory for studying aspects of geophysical boundary layer flows that are extremely difficult to measure elsewhere. This book draws on both extensive observations and theoretical principles to develop a concise description of the impact of stress, rotation, and buoyancy on the turbulence scales that control exchanges between the atmosphere and underlying ocean when sea ice is present. Several interesting and unique observational data sets are used to illustrate different aspects of ice-ocean interaction ranging from the impact of salt on melting in the Greenland Sea marginal ice zone, to how nonlinearities in the equation of state for seawater affect mixing in the Weddell Sea.

The book s content, developed from a series of lectures, may be appropriate additional material for upper-level undergraduates and first-year graduate students studying the geophysics of sea ice and planetary boundary layers."

This book reports the newest research and technical achievements on the following theme blocks: Design of mobile map services and its constraints, typology and usability of mobile map services, visualization solutions on small displays for time-critical tasks, mobile map users, interaction and adaptation in mobile environments and applications of map-based mobile services.

Based on data from an experiment which ran for ten years, this book summarizes the results of the Atmospheric Physics Department of the St. Petersburg University and the Main Geophysical Observatory. The processed data now forms a rich dataset of spectral values of radiative characteristics under different atmospheric conditions. The analysis of this database clearly shows that the solar radiative absorption in a dusty and cloudy atmosphere is significantly higher than assumed to date. Both graduate students of atmospheric sciences as well as scientists and researchers in the field of meteorology and climatology will find a wealth of new data and information in this monograph.

This volume contains selected papers by Torben Krarup, one of the most important geodesists of the 20th century. The collection includes the famous booklet "A Contribution to the Mathematical Foundation of Physical Geodesy" from 1969, the unpublished "Molodenskij letters" from 1973, the final version of "Integrated Geodesy" from 1978, "Foundation of a Theory of Elasticity for Geodetic Networks" from 1974, as well as trend-setting papers on the theory of adjustment.

The book addresses scientists and technical experts who have already some background knowledge in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and who want to know more about standardisation in GIS, in particular, the role of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In addition, the monograph meets the needs of programmers who are involved in implementing ISO 19100 standards and who need a better understanding of the overall structure of the standards. Last, but not least, this richly illustrated book helps readers to better understand the rather abstract ISO documents.

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is a modern numerical technique, very efficient, flexible to simulate different flows within complex/varying geome tries. It is evolved from the lattice gas automata (LGA) in order to overcome the difficulties with the LGA. The core equation in the LBM turns out to be a special discrete form of the continuum Boltzmann equation, leading it to be self-explanatory in statistical physics. The method describes the micro scopic picture of particles movement in an extremely simplified way, and on the macroscopic level it gives a correct average description of a fluid. The av eraged particle velocities behave in time and space just as the flow velocities in a physical fluid, showing a direct link between discrete microscopic and continuum macroscopic phenomena. In contrast to the traditional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based on a direct solution of flow equations, the lattice Boltzmann method provides an indirect way for solution of the flow equations. The method is characterized by simple calculation, parallel process and easy implementation of boundary conditions. It is these features that make the lattice Boltzmann method a very promising computational method in different areas. In recent years, it receives extensive attentions and becomes a very potential research area in computational fluid dynamics. However, most published books are limited to the lattice Boltzmann methods for the Navier-Stokes equations. On the other hand, shallow water flows exist in many practical situations such as tidal flows, waves, open channel flows and dam-break flows."

It is with pleasure that I write the foreword to this excellent book. A wide range of observations in geology and solid-earth geophysics can be - plained in terms of fractal distributions. In this volume a collection of - pers considers the fractal behavior of the Earth's continental crust. The book begins with an excellent introductory chapter by the editor Dr. V.P. Dimri. Surface gravity anomalies are known to exhibit power-law spectral behavior under a wide range of conditions and scales. This is self-affine fractal behavior. Explanations of this behavior remain controversial. In chapter 2 V.P. Dimri and R.P. Srivastava model this behavior using Voronoi tessellations. Another approach to understanding the structure of the continental crust is to use electromagnetic induction experiments. Again the results often exhibit power law spectral behavior. In chapter 3 K. Bahr uses a fractal based random resister network model to explain the observations. Other examples of power-law spectral observations come from a wide range of well logs using various logging tools. In chapter 4 M. Fedi, D. Fiore, and M. La Manna utilize multifractal models to explain the behavior of well logs from the main KTB borehole in Germany. In chapter 5 V.V. Surkov and H. Tanaka model the electrokinetic currents that may be as- ciated with seismic electric signals using a fractal porous media. In chapter 6 M. Pervukhina, Y. Kuwahara, and H. Ito use fractal n- works to correlate the elastic and electrical properties of porous media.

This breakthrough book is the first to examine the rotational effects in earthquakes, a revolutionary concept in seismology. Existing models do no yet explain the significant rotational and twisting motions that occur during an earthquake and cause the failure of structures. The rotation and twist effects are investigated and described, and their consequences for designing tall buildings and other important structures are presented. This book will change the way the world views earthquakes.

'Tensile Fracturing in Rocks' presents field observations on fracturing of sedim- tary rocks and granite outcrops from various provinces in three continents. It also combines results of recent experiments conducted at different laboratories around the world with current theories on fracturing. In treating faults, this book limits itself to faults that are associated with joint sets produced by definable causes and occasi- ally to cases where interaction between the two types of fracture - faults and joints - is not clear. The book's subject matter is divided over six chapters, which are briefly described below. Chapter 1 summarizes current key concepts in fracture physics. It starts with a pr- entation of the elastic theory of fracture, and concentrates on the results of linear el- tic fracture mechanics. The chapter touches also upon other fracture properties, e.g., crack nucleation, dynamic fracturing and slow fracturing processes. Nucleation is - dressed by statistical mechanics methods incorporating modern approaches of th- mal and fiber bundle processes. The analyses of dynamic fracturing and slow fract- ing focus on the differences, as compared to the linear elastic approach. The cont- versy in interpreting experimental dynamic results is highlighted, as are the surface morphology patterns that emerge in fracturing and the non-Griffith crack extension criterion in very slow fracturing processes.

Physical processes, involving atomic phenomena, allow more and more precise time and frequency measurements. This progress is not possible without convenient processing of the respective raw data. The book describes the data processing at various levels: design of the time and frequency references, characterization of the time and frequency references, applications involving precise time and/or frequency references.The metrological properties stability, accuracy and reproducibility are defined and the processes leading to their characterization are shown. The various aspects of the variance of the frequency fluctuations are discussed and compared and their significance is given.

Some major applications of the best frequency and time standards are finally discussed. The way the extreme precision of these sources is used to obtain precise time and position information is shown: Time scales, used to describe every human and physical activities, such as astronomy, physical laws, etc.; Positioning systems, such as GPS; Very long base interferometry (VLBI).