Climate change is one of the most challenging issues of our time. As key sites in the production and management of emissions of greenhouse gases, cities will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies on climate change. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability.
In the post-Rio era, international organizations and transnational networks have promoted the need for local action on global environmental issues. Part I considers the implications of these developments for understanding global environmental governance and urban sustainability. It outlines international and national responses to climate change, and documents the evidence to date on local responses to climate change, examining in detail the international Cities for Climate Protection programme. Part II presents a series of case-studies drawn from this transnational network in the UK, USA and Australia. Each case-study examines the development and implementation of local climate change policy, focusing on the issues of energy conservation, planning and transport. Part III compares the experience of the case-study cities in addressing climate change, and assesses the implications of these findings for urban sustainability and global environmental governance.
"Cities and Climate Change" is the first in-depth analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change. The book argues that key challenges concerning the resources and powers of local government, as well as conflicts between local goals for economic development and climate change mitigation, have restricted the level of localaction on climate change. These findings have significant implications for the prospects of mitigating climate change and achieving urban sustainability. This book provides a valuable interdisciplinary analysis of these issues, and will appeal to students and researchers interested in sustainability at local and global scales.

Why, despite all we know about the causes and harms of global heating, has so little effective action been taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and what we can do to change that? This book explains the mechanisms and impacts of the climate crisis, traces the history and reasons behind the lack of serious effort to combat it, describes some people's ongoing scepticism and how to shift it, and motivates an urgent program of action. It argues that the pathway to stopping dangerous global heating will require a much larger mobilization of advocacy and activism to impel decision makers to abandon fossil fuels, and transition to renewable energy and electrification embedded in a political and social framework guided by justice principles. It is an excellent resource for students and researchers on the climate crisis, the need for a renewable energy transition, and the current blocks to progress.

A century ago, Lewis Fry Richardson introduced the concept of energy cascades in turbulence. Since this conceptual breakthrough, turbulence has been studied in diverse systems and our knowledge has increased considerably through theoretical, numerical, experimental and observational advances. Eddy turbulence and wave turbulence are the two regimes we can find in nature. So far, most attention has been devoted to the former regime, eddy turbulence, which is often observed in water. However, physicists are often interested in systems for which wave turbulence is relevant. This textbook deals with wave turbulence and systems composed of a sea of weak waves interacting non-linearly. After a general introduction which includes a brief history of the field, the theory of wave turbulence is introduced rigorously for surface waves. The theory is then applied to examples in hydrodynamics, plasma physics, astrophysics and cosmology, giving the reader a modern and interdisciplinary view of the subject.

The book is a collection of the lectures delivered during the 7th International Summer School on Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ISSAOS) titled "Integrated Ground-Based Observing Systems Applications for Climate, Meteorology, and Civil Protection". Its aim is to contribute to the scientific understanding of basic concepts and applications of integrated ground-based observing systems. The first part describes the most common instrumentations showing their strengths and limitations. Furthermore, strategic plans for the deployment of an observation site are discussed along with an overview of techniques for integrating heterogeneous data. The second part introduces cutting-edge applications, including assimilation in numerical weather prediction, climate benchmarking, air quality monitoring and meteo/hydrological warnings.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the illegal extraction of metals and minerals from the perspectives of organized crime theory, green criminology, anti-corruption studies, and victimology. It includes contributions that focus on organized crime-related offences, such as drug trafficking and trafficking in persons, extortion, corruption and money laundering and sheds light on the serious environmental harms caused by illegal mining. Based on a wide range of case studies from the Amazon rainforest through the Ukrainian flatlands to the desert-like savanna of Central African Republic and Australia's elevated plateaus, this book offers a unique insight into the illegal mining business and the complex relationship between organized crime, corruption, and ecocide. This is the first book-length publication on illegal extraction, trafficking in mined commodities, and ecocide associated with mining. It will appeal to scholars working on organized crime and green crime, including criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and legal scholars. Practitioners and the general public may welcome this comprehensive and timely publication to contemplate on resource-scarcity, security, and crime in a rapidly changing world.

For over 50 years Heavy Weather Sailing has been regarded as the ultimate international authority on surviving storms at sea aboard sailing and motor vessels. In this book, former Commodore of the Ocean Cruising Club Martin Thomas brings together a wealth of expert advice from many of the great sailors of the present, including fresh accounts of yachts overtaken by extreme weather, from Ewan Southby-Tailyour, Alex Whitworth and Dag Pike to Larry and Lin Pardey, Matt Sheahan and Andrew Claughton. The expert advice section has been updated in line with current thinking, with major new additions tackling preventing or coping with lightning strikes, navigating in heavy weather with both paper and electronic charts, the choice and use of tenders in severe weather, and special problems faced by the new generation of foiled cruising boats. For the first time the book also covers the unique challenges presented by weather in high latitudes, with more yachts crossing the Drake Passage and attempting the North West Passage. These revisions ensure that Heavy Weather Sailing is as relevant, useful and instructive for today's sailor venturing offshore as it ever was. This is the definitive book for crews of any size contemplating voyages out of sight of land anywhere in the world, whether racing or cruising. It gives a clear message regarding the preparations required, and the tactics to consider when it comes on to blow.

How will future climates be different from today's world-and what consequences will changes in climate have for societies and their development strategies? This book is a primer on the essential science for grasping the workings of climate change and climate prediction. It is accessible for readers with little to no background in science, with an emphasis on the needs of those studying sustainable development. John C. Mutter gives a just-the-facts overview of how the climate system functions and what we know about why changes occur. He recounts the evolution of climatology from the earliest discoveries about Earth's climate to present-day predictive capabilities, and clearly presents the scientific basis of fundamental topics such as climate zones, ocean-atmosphere dynamics, and the long-term cycles from glacial to interglacial periods. Mutter also details the mechanisms of climate change and the ways in which human activity affects global climate. He explains the science behind some known consequences of rising temperatures, such as sea level rise, hurricane behavior, and climate variability. The primer discusses how climate predictions are made and examines the sources of uncertainty in forecasting. Climate Change Science is a straightforward and easy-to-read treatment of the fundamental science needed to comprehend one of today's most important issues.

Flood Survival is a preparedness guide that is as relevant to residents in mountainous regions as it is to residents of more typical flood zones. Floods are one of the most common hazards in the USA; they can develop slowly or come on very quickly in the form of a flash flood. This guide teaches readers to be aware of flood hazards and be prepared no matter where they live or work.
The guide covers preparedness and encourages readers to build an emergency kit as well as a response plan. It then proceeds to advise ways to cope during a flood as well as what steps to take after the flood has receded. Knowing what to do before, during and after an emergency is a critical part of being prepared and may make all the difference when seconds count.

Spawned from powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes can cause fatalities and devastate a neighborhood in seconds. With more than 1,200 tornadoes striking the US each year, they cause billions of dollars worth of damage. Most communities will be impacted by several types of natural hazards during a lifetime. Knowing what to do before, during and after an emergency is a critical part of being prepared and may make all the difference when seconds count.
Waterford Press's Tornado Survival guide will help readers learn how to prepare before -- build an emergency kit and have a plan and know where to receive information. Readers will then learn what to do during a tornado -- where to seek shelter, and finally how to build a tornado kit -- what to pack and where to keep it so it is accessible when needed.

Atmospheric Thermodynamics provides a comprehensive treatment of a subject that can often be intimidating. The text analyses real-life problems and applications of the subject, alongside of guiding the reader through the fundamental basics and covering the first and second laws and the ideal gas law, followed by an emphasis on moist processes in Earth's atmosphere. Water in all its phases is a critical component of weather and the Earth's climate system. With user-friendly chapters that include energy conservation and water and its transformations, the authors write with a willingness to expose assumptions and approximations usually absent in other textbooks. History is woven into the text to provide a context for the time evolution of thermodynamics and its place in atmospheric science and demonstrating how physical reasoning leads to correct explanations of everyday phenomena. Many of the experiments described were done using inexpensive instruments to take advantage of the earth's atmosphere as a freely accessible thermodynamics library. This second edition provides updated treatments of atmospheric measurements and substantially expanded sections that include atmospheric applications of the first and second laws and energy exchange between humans and their atmospheric environment. With 400+ thought provoking problems and 350 references with annotated notes and further reading suggestions, this second edition provides a basic understanding of the fundamentals of this subject while still being a comprehensive reference guide for those working in the field of atmospheric and environmental sciences.

This monograph deals with the main principles of large-scale atmospheric dynamics on the basis of adiabatic motion constants. It can be considered as an introduction to the theory of quasi two-dimensional fluid motion concentrating primarily on nearly horizontal fluid parcel displacements in a stably stratified compressible fluid. A thorough mathematical treatment of the governing equations is coupled with a clear interpretation of the phenomena studied and accompanied by examples of real meteorological data analysis. Topics include a complete set of compressible fluid dynamic equations along with a survey on fluid dynamical conservation laws used in meteorology and atmospheric physics; the derivation of two-dimensional atmospheric models; large-scale flows; isentropic analysis of large-scale atmospheric processes; and the principles of kinetic energy sinks and their relation to the energy balance in the atmosphere.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203216482

As the planet warms, winter is shrinking. In the last fifty years, the Northern Hemisphere lost a million square miles of spring snowpack, and high-elevation snowpacks in the western United States have decreased by nearly half since 1982. On average, winter has shrunk by a month in most northern latitudes. In this deeply researched, beautifully written, and adventure-filled book, journalist Porter Fox travels along the edge of the Northern Hemisphere's snow line to track the scope of this drastic change and how it will literally change everything-from rapid sea level rise, to fresh water scarcity for two billion people, to massive greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, and several climate tipping points that could very well spell the end of our world. This original research is animated by four harrowing and illuminating journeys-each grounded by interviews with idiosyncratic, charismatic experts in their respective fields and Fox's own narrative of growing up on a remote island in northern Maine. Timely, atmospheric, and expertly investigated, The Last Winter showcases a shocking and unexpected casualty of climate change-which may well set off its own unstoppable warming cycle.

This textbook aims to be a one stop shop for those interested in aerosols and their impact on the climate system. It starts with some fundamentals on atmospheric aerosols, atmospheric radiation and cloud physics, then goes into techniques used for in-situ and remote sensing measurements of aerosols, data assimilation, and discusses aerosol-radiation interactions, aerosol-cloud interactions and the multiple impacts of aerosols on the climate system. The book aims to engage those interested in aerosols and their impacts on the climate system: graduate and PhD students, but also post-doctorate fellows who are new to the field or would like to broaden their knowledge. The book includes exercises at the end of most chapters. Atmospheric aerosols are small (microscopic) particles in suspension in the atmosphere, which play multiple roles in the climate system. They interact with the energy budget through scattering and absorption of solar and terrestrial radiation. They also serve as cloud condensation and ice nuclei with impacts on the formation, evolution and properties of clouds. Finally aerosols also interact with some biogeochemical cycles. Anthropogenic emissions of aerosols are responsible for a cooling effect that has masked part of the warming due to the increased greenhouse effect since pre-industrial time. Natural aerosols also respond to climate changes as shown by observations of past climates and modelling of the future climate.

It is now accepted that the world's climate has warmed by about 0.5A DegreesC over the past one hundred years and will continue to warm by as much as 6A DegreesC by the end of the current century. What, however, do such fundamental changes actually mean for life and the economy at the local and regional scales for the industrialized nations? This extensive study represents a state-of-the-art regional assessment of the impacts of climate change in an industrialized European nation. Providing a comprehensive set of tools, techniques and strategies, it explores the potential impacts of climate change upon key landscapes, economic and social sectors.

Synoptic and Dynamic Climatology provides the first comprehensive account of the dynamical behaviour and mechanisms of the global climate system and its components, together with a modern survey of synoptic-scale weather systems in the tropics and extra tropics, and of the methods and applications of synoptic climate classification.

* An introduction to the global climate system and the space-time scales of weather and climate processes, * Climate data and their analysis
* General circulation of the global atmosphere * Nature and causes of global teleconnection patterns
* Synoptic weather systems in the extra tropics and tropics and satellite-based climatologies of synoptic features * Descriptions of applications of synoptic climatology * Summary of current climatic research and its directions.

The work is thoroughly up to date, with extensive bibliographies by chapter. It is illustrated with nearly 300 figures and plates. Its comprehensive reference lists provide an invaluable guide to further study.

Instabilities are present in all natural fluids from rivers to atmospheres. This book considers the physical processes that generate instability. Part I describes the normal mode instabilities most important in geophysical applications, including convection, shear instability and baroclinic instability. Classical analytical approaches are covered, while also emphasising numerical methods, mechanisms such as internal wave resonance, and simple `rules of thumb' that permit assessment of instability quickly and intuitively. Part II introduces the cutting edge: nonmodal instabilities, the relationship between instability and turbulence, self-organised criticality, and advanced numerical techniques. Featuring numerous exercises and projects, the book is ideal for advanced students and researchers wishing to understand flow instability and apply it to their own research. It can be used to teach courses in oceanography, atmospheric science, coastal engineering, applied mathematics and environmental science. Exercise solutions and MATLAB (R) examples are provided online. Also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Climate change is a matter of extreme urgency. Integrating science and economics, this book demonstrates the need for measures to put a strict lid on cumulative carbon emissions and shows how to implement them. Using the carbon budget framework, it reveals the shortcomings of current policies and the debates around them, such as the popular enthusiasm for individual solutions and the fruitless search for 'optimal' regulation by economists and other specialists. On the political front, it explains why business opposition to the policies we need goes well beyond the fossil fuel industry, requiring a more radical rebalancing of power. This wide-ranging study goes against the most prevalent approaches in mainstream economics, which argue that we can tackle climate change while causing minimal disruption to the global economy. The author argues that this view is not only impossible, but also dangerously complacent.

'...another tour-de-force that must make these volumes landmarks in their field' - Journal of Meteorology

Global Warming: The Hard Science presents a comprehensive, qualitatively rigorous, and critical discussion of the science underlying the global warming issue. The major processes in the climate system needed to understand projected human-induced climatic change are presented in detail. Observational systems used to monitor changes in the climate system and the ways in which the raw data are analyzed in order to produce estimates of current trends are also critically reviewed.
The author discusses the hierarchy of computer models used to project changes in the carbon cycle, in climate, and in sea level and examines the physical principles underlying the greenhouse effect and projected warming. The text also presents a detailed discussion of the carbon cycle, of climate sensitivity, and of projected patterns of climatic change through time. Sea level rise and issues of risk and potential surprises are also critically assessed. Emphasis is placed throughout on developing an intuitive understanding of those results that do not depend on the details of any one computer simulation model. A series of boxes illustrate the key points through step-by-step calculations.

Compelling . . . Clark's enthusiasm shines through on every page' Sunday Times 'An engaging and lively history' Financial Times __________ A thin, invisible layer of air surrounds the Earth, sustaining all known life on the planet and creating the unique climates and weather patterns that make each part of the world different. In Firmament, atmospheric scientist and science communicator Simon Clark offers a rare and accessible tour of the ins and outs of the atmosphere and how we know what we know about it. From the workings of its different layers to why carbon dioxide is special, from pioneers like Pascal to the unsung heroes working in the field to help us understand climate change, Firmament introduces us to an oft-overlooked area of science and not only lays the ground work for us to better understand the debates surrounding the climate today, but also provides a glimpse of the future that is possible with this knowledge in hand. __________