This thesis encompasses a study of past precipitation patterns based on six cave stalagmites from different parts of the Indian Himalaya. This is the first speleothem study in the Indian Himalaya that shows a direct relationship between past precipitation and the collapse of civilization. The stalagmites examined were KL-3 from Jammu and Kashmir; TCS and BR-1 from Himachal Pradesh; and DH-1, SA-1 and CH-1 from Uttarakhand. Based on the high-resolution palaeoclimatic reconstruction (35 U/th dates, 5 AMS dates, 1,500 samples for 18O and 13C values) obtained for the duration of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (16.2-9.5 ka BP) and Mid-Holocene-Present (ca. 4.0 ka BP-Present), three major events were identified, namely the Older Dryas (OD), Bolling-Allerod (BA) period and Younger Dryas (YD) at ca. 14.3-13.9, 13.9-12.7 and 12.7-12.2 ka BP, respectively. The study showed a gradual reduction in the precipitation from 4 ka BP onwards for about a millennium with a peak arid period between 3.2 and 3.1 ka BP. According to the findings, the LIA (Little Ice Age) covers a time span from 1622-1820 AD, during which the climate was wetter than that in the post-LIA period (1820-1950 AD). In addition, this thesis supports the assumption that the WDs (Western Disturbances) contribute significantly to the total rainfall in the Himalaya region.

This book presents key principles of the hydraulics of river basins, with a unique focus on the interplay between stream flows and sediment transport. Addressing a number of basic topics related to the hydraulics of natural waterways, it above all emphasizes applicative aspects in order to provide the reader with a solid grasp of river engineering. The first chapter explores many of the fixed base hydraulic topics that are normally neglected in traditional texts, namely the effects on motion produced by the vegetation and macroroughnesses that characterize many mountain streams. The remaining chapters are devoted entirely to hydraulics with mobile riverbeds and put particular emphasis on inhomogeneous river channels. The book's approach goes beyond classical treatments, so as to not only introduce readers to the fundamentals of mobile riverbeds, but also enable today's river engineers to successfully design and maintain natural riverbeds.

This volume provides an overview of current developments in theoretical aspects of atmosphere-ocean interactions. These include the fundamental influence of the ocean surface on the atmospheric dynamics and also the impact of atmospheric phenomena on the upper ocean. Both large scale ocean-atmosphere dynamics, including low frequency variability, as well as shorter time-scales, such as the physics of the atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers and their interactions with surface waves and related air-sea processes important in marine storms are considered. The text also includes some recent research results.

Global warming is extremely complex because it deals with so many different characteristics of the Earth and their complex interactions. It is addressed by almost all sciences including many aspects of geosciences, atmospheric, the biological sciences, and even astronomy. It has recently become the concern of other diverse disciplines such as economics, agriculture, demographics and population statistics, medicine, engineering, and political science. This book attempts to address these complex interactions, integrate them, and derive meaningful conclusions and possible solutions. Robert Strom and Jeffrey Kargel provide a complete, easy-to-read explanation of past and present global climate change, causes and possible solutions to the problem, including the politics and reasons why this is such a politically charged issue.

Adapting to Climate Change in Europe: Exploring Sustainable Pathways - From Local Measures to Wider Policies is a scientific synthesis of a four-year project on adaptation activities in Europe. It combines scientific assessments with real-world case descriptions to present specific tools and methods. This book aims at ensuring sustainable solutions in adaptation to climate change. The challenge of adaptation is still at an early stage; this book fills relevant gaps in current knowledge on climate adaptation, providing a crucial set of tools to support effective decision-making. It acts as a guide to practitioners and decision-makers along different steps of on-going adaptation processes. Adapting to Climate Change in Europe contains methods and tools for improving stakeholder's participation and analyzing costs and benefits of different adaptation measures. It is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, and experts and policymakers working in climate change and adaptation.

This book is a survey of the research work done by the author over the last 15 years, in collaboration with various eminent mathematicians and climate scientists on the subject of tropical convection and convectively coupled waves. In the areas of climate modelling and climate change science, tropical dynamics and tropical rainfall are among the biggest uncertainties of future projections. This not only puts at risk billions of human beings who populate the tropical continents but it is also of central importance for climate predictions on the global scale. This book aims to introduce the non-expert readers in mathematics and theoretical physics to this fascinating topic in order to attract interest into this difficult and exciting research area. The general thyme revolves around the use of new deterministic and stochastic multi-cloud models for tropical convection and convectively coupled waves. It draws modelling ideas from various areas of mathematics and physics and used in conjunction with state-of-the-art satellite and in-situ observations and detailed numerical simulations. After a review of preliminary material on tropical dynamics and moist thermodynamics, including recent discoveries based on satellite observations as well as Markov chains, the book immerses the reader into the area of models for convection and tropical waves. It begins with basic concepts of linear stability analysis and ends with the use of these models to improve the state-of-the-art global climate models. The book also contains a fair amount of exercises that makes it suitable as a textbook complement on the subject.

This book presents the selected peer-reviewed papers from the national conference Futuristic Approaches in Civil Engineering (FACE) 2019. This volume focuses on latest research and challenges in the field of geotechnical, transportation, environmental and water resources engineering. The first part focuses on alternative and sustainable pavement materials, maintenance and rehabilitation of roads, transportation planning, traffic engineering, hybrid vehicles, safety management, and intelligent transport systems. In the second part of the book, basic and advanced research in geotechnical engineering which can provide sustainable solutions to practical problems in foundations, retaining structures, soil dynamics, site characterization, slope stability, dams, rock engineering, environmental geotechnics, and geosynthetics are covered. The third part of the book includes current research in environment, and water resources engineering. The contents of this book will be useful for students, researchers as well as industry professionals.

This volume represents a contribution to the growing literature on international and comparative climate change policy. The product of a research project of the International Bar Association Section on Energy and Natural Resources Law (SERL), it brings together leading academic lawyers from around the world, who provide detailed perspectives on what individual countries are doing (or, in some cases, not doing) to address the climate change problem. The book illustrates the range of national actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including incentives for renewable energy sources, forestry activities, voluntary agreements with industry, and emissions trading schemes. By including experts from both industrialized and developing countries, it also highlights the very differing perspectives that must be addressed in any international climate change regime, whether under Kyoto or a successor. These detailed case studies provide a rich array of material, which should be of significant interest not only to academic and business lawyers, but also to economists and energy experts, government officials, and NGOs.

This book describes the derivation of the equations of motion of fluids as well as the dynamics of ocean and atmospheric currents on both large and small scales through the use of variational methods. In this way the equations of Fluid and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics are re-derived making use of a unifying principle, that is Hamilton's Principle of Least Action. The equations are analyzed within the framework of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics for continuous systems. The analysis of the equations' symmetries and the resulting conservation laws, from Noether's Theorem, represent the core of the description. Central to this work is the analysis of particle relabeling symmetry, which is unique for fluid dynamics and results in the conservation of potential vorticity. Different special approximations and relations, ranging from the semi-geostrophic approximation to the conservation of wave activity, are derived and analyzed. Thanks to a complete derivation of all relationships, this book is accessible for students at both undergraduate and graduate levels, as well for researchers. Students of theoretical physics and applied mathematics will recognize the existence of theoretical challenges behind the applied field of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, while students of applied physics, meteorology and oceanography will be able to find and appreciate the fundamental relationships behind equations in this field.

This book intends to bring together and integrate the subject matter of water quality. The book covers aspects of water related to climate change, emerging aspects of engineering sciences, bio-geochemical sciences, hydro geochemistry, river management and morphology, social sciences, and public policy. The book covers the role of disruptive innovations in water management, policy formation and impact mitigation strategies. The book includes lab results as well as case studies. It provides recommendations and solutions for policy making and sustainable water management. The chapters in this book deal cohesively with many aspects of the water environment during the Anthropocene era. The contents cover myriad issues, such as land degradation, water scarcity, urbanization, climate change, and disruptive innovation. The book also discusses issues highly pertinent to society and sustainability, such as the prevalence of enteric viruses and pharmaceutical residues as a possible anthropogenic markers in the aquatic environment. The book will prove useful for students, professionals, and researchers working on various aspects of water related concerns.

This book maps extreme temperature increase under dangerous climate change scenarios in Brazil and their impacts on four key sectors: agriculture, health, biodiversity and energy. The book draws on a careful review of the literature and climate projections, including relative risk estimates. This synthesis summarizes the state-of-the-art knowledge and provides decision-makers with risk analysis tools, to be incorporated in public planning policy, in order to understand climate events which may occur and which may have significant consequences.

This book sets out to give a rigorous mathematical description of the greenhouse effect through the theory of infrared atmospheric emission. In contrast to traditional climatological analysis, this approach eschews empirical relations in favour of a strict thermodynamical derivation, based on data from NASA and from the HITRAN spectroscopy database. The results highlight new aspects of the role of clouds in the greenhouse effect.

1 Einleitung.- 1.1 Wetter: Faszination und Gefahr.- 1.2 Kann man das Wetter leicht verstehen?.- 1.3 Unwetter.- 1.4 Nehmen die atmospharischen Gefahren zu?.- 2 Einige Grundlagen aus der Meteorologie.- 2.1 Die Zusammensetzung der Luft.- 2.2 Atmospharische Bewegungssysteme.- 2.3 Der Luftdruck.- 2.4 Der Wind und seine Auswirkungen.- 2.5 Krafte, die die horizontale Windgeschwindigkeit bestimmen.- 2.5.1 Druckgradientkraft und Corioliskraft.- 2.5.2 Der geostrophische Wind.- 2.5.3 Der Gradientwind.- 2.5.4 Der Einfluss der Reibung.- 2.5.5 Systeme, bei denen die Corioliskraft nur eine kleine Rolle spielt.- 2.5.6 Windprofile in der Atmospharischen Grenzschicht.- 2.6 Temperaturanderung mit der Hoehe.- 2.6.1 Die mittlere Temperaturschichtung.- 2.6.2 Die Temperaturanderung eines trocken auf-oder absteigenden Luftteilchens.- 2.6.3 Die Temperaturanderung eines mit Wasserdampf gesattigten auf-oder absteigenden Luftteilchens.- 2.6.4 Inversionen.- 2.7 Stabilitat der Atmosphare.- 2.8 AEnderung der Temperatur in der Horizontalen.- 2.8.1 Warme und kalte Luftsaulen nebeneinander.- 2.8.2 Allmahlicher UEbergang.- 2.8.3 Fronten.- 2.9 Wolkenteilchen, Niederschlagsteilchen und Niederschlag.- 3 Die Allgemeine Zirkulation der Atmosphare.- 4 Lokale Sturme (Gewitter).- 4.1 Entstehung der Lokalen Sturme (Gewitter).- 4.1.1 Entwicklung von Cumulus-Wolken.- 4.1.2 Single-cell Storms.- 4.1.3 Multi-cell Storms.- 4.1.4 Supercell Storms.- 4.1.5 Tornados.- 4.1.6 Mesoskalige Konvektive Komplexe.- 4.2 Gefahren und Schaden durch Lokale Sturme.- 4.2.1 Downbursts und Sturm.- 4.2.2 Hagel.- 4.2.3 Starkregen und UEberflutungen.- 4.2.4 Blitzschlag.- 4.2.5 Tornados.- 5 Tropische Zyklonen.- 5.1 Das Phanomen.- 5.2 Entstehung.- 5.3 Gefahren und Schaden durch Tropische Zyklonen.- 6 Mittelbreitenzyklonen.- 6.1 Entstehung.- 6.2 Struktur.- 6.3 Zentral-, Rand-und Mesozyklonen.- 6.4 Gefahren und Schaden durch Mittelbreitenzyklonen.- 6.4.1 Sturme.- 6.4.2 Hochwasser, UEberflutungen.- 6.4.3 Blizzards.- 6.4.4 Frontgewitter, grosse Schneefalle, Rauhfrost und Rauheis.- 7 Risiken bei "friedlichem" Wetter.- 7.1 Schwule.- 7.2 Grosse Hitze und grosse Kalte.- 7.3 Nebel.- 7.4 Glatte.- 7.5 Luftverunreinigungen, Smog.- Anhang A: Der Atmosphare innewohnende Energien.- A.1 Definitionen, Einheiten und Umrechnungen.- A.2 Leistung.- A.3 Energie.- A.4 Energieflussdichten.- A.5 In der Atmosphare enthaltene Energien (grobe Abschatzungen).- Anhang B: Unterschiedliche Angabe von Windstarken.- Anhang C: Hochwasserschaden weltweit von 1993 bis 2002.- Anhang D: "Wetterversicherungen".- Sachwortverzeichnis.

This book contains the scientific contributions to the 11th International Workshop on Bifurcation and Degradation in Geomaterials (IWBDG) held in Limassol-Cyprus, May 21-25, 2017. The IWBDG series have grown in size and scope, since their inception 30 years ago in Germany, covering more and wider areas of geomaterials and geomechanics research including modern trends. The papers cover a wide range of topics including advances in instabilities, localized and diffuse failure, micromechanical, multiscale phenomena, multiphysics modeling and other related topics. This volume gathers a series of manuscript by brilliant international scholars who work on modern recent advances in experimental, theoretical and numerical methods. The theoretical and applied mechanics are linked successfully with engineering applications in traditional and in emerging fields, such as geomechanics for the energy and the environment. The quality of the contributed papers has benefited from the peer review process by expert referees. This book can be used as a useful reference for research students, academics and practicing engineers who are interested in the instability and degradation problems in geomaterials, geomechanics, geotechnical engineering and other related applications.

This book explains the hypoplastic modelling framework. It is divided into two parts, the first of which is devoted to principles of hypoplasticity. First, the basic features of soil's mechanical behaviour are introduced, namely non-linearity and asymptotic properties. These features are then incorporated into simple one-dimensional hypoplastic equations for compression and shear. Subsequently, a hypoplastic equivalent of the Modified Cam-Clay model is developed in 2D space using stress and strain invariants to demonstrate key similarities and differences between elasto-plastic and hypoplastic formulations. Lastly, the mathematical structure of hypoplastic models is explained by tracing their historical development, from the early trial-and-error models to more recent approaches. In turn, Part II introduces specific hypoplastic models for soils. First, two reference models for sand and clay are defined. After summarising their mathematical formulations, calibration procedures are described and discussed. Subsequently, more advanced modelling approaches are covered: the intergranular strain concept incorporating the effects of small strain stiffness and cyclic loading, viscohypoplasticity for predicting rate effects, soil structure to represent structured and bonded materials and soil anisotropy. The book concludes with a description of partial saturation and thermal effects: topics that are increasingly important to the disciplines of energy and environmental geotechnics. Selecting a constitutive model and its parameters is often the most important and yet challenging part of any numerical analysis in geotechnical engineering. Hypoplasticity involves a specific class of soil constitutive models, which are described in detail here. The book offers an essential resource, both for model users who need a more advanced model for their geotechnical calculations and are mainly interested in parameter calibration procedures, and for model developers who are seeking a comprehensive understanding of the mathematical structure of hypoplasticity.

This book discusses in detail the science and morphology of powerful hurricane detection systems. It broadly addresses new approaches to monitoring hazards using freely available images from the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Sentinel-1 SAR satellite and benchmarks a new interdisciplinary field at the interface between oceanography, meteorology and remote sensing. Following the launch of the first European Space Agency (ESA) operational synthetic aperture radar satellite, Sentinel-1, in 2014, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data has been freely available on the Internet hub in real-time. This advance allows weather forecasters to view hurricanes in fine detail for the first time. As a result, the number of synthetic aperture radar research scientists working in this field is set to grow exponentially in the next decade; the book is a valuable resource for this large and budding audience.

This book examines energy efficiency in the Australian built environment and presents current developments with a particular focus on the temperate setting of Victoria state. It is divided into four main parts discussing policies, climate, and carbon footprint and presenting case studies on the energy performance and indoor environmental quality of various building types. The book is intended for readers wanting to understand the various policies related to different buildings types and their energy performance.

These proceedings of the EPS 2018: 5th International Conference on Geofoam Blocks in Construction Applications, held in Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus on May 9 to 11, 2018, present a collection of contributions on the state-of-the-art of research and applications relating to geofoam. Geofoam researchers, consultants, molders, contractors and practitioners from all around the globe discuss the recent developments and future trends of expanded polystyrene (EPS)-block geofoam technology and its construction applications. EPS'18 contributes to the development of geofoam applications, following on from successful conferences in Oslo (1985), Tokyo (1996), Salt Lake City (2001) and Oslo (2011). The book discusses topics including, but not limited to, current use of geofoam, design specifications, applications, new concepts, material properties, modeling and specific topics in geofoam blocks in construction applications.

The book is a practical manual which has been created to support the syllabus of agro-meteorology courses specifically designed for graduate and post-graduate students. The topics covered in the manual include working with meteorological instruments for measurement of various meteorological parameters like temperature, humidity, sunshine hours, precipitation, etc. Separate chapters have been included for computation of growing degree days, agro-climatic zones, crop modelling and agro-advisory services. The book will have great appeal to students of agriculture, horticulture, and forestry.

This book presents current applications of remote sensing techniques for clouds and precipitation for the benefit of students, educators, and scientists. It covers ground-based systems such as weather radars and spaceborne instruments on satellites. Measurements and modeling of precipitation are at the core of weather forecasting, and long-term observations of the cloud system are vital to improving atmospheric models and climate projections. The first section of the book focuses on the use of ground-based weather radars to observe and measure precipitation and to detect and forecast storms, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. It also discusses the observation of clouds using ground-based millimeter radar. The second part of the book concentrates on spaceborne remote sensing of clouds and precipitation. It includes cases from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, using satellite radars to observe precipitation systems. Then, the focus is on global cloud observations from the ClaudSat, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), including a perspective on the Earth Clouds, Aerosols, and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite. It also addresses global atmospheric water vapor profiling for clear and cloudy conditions using microwave observations. The final part of this volume provides a perspective into advances in cloud modeling using remote sensing observations.

This volume contains selects papers presented during the 2nd International Conference on Environmental Geotechnology, Recycled Waste Materials and Sustainable Engineering, held in the University of Illinois at Chicago. It covers the recent innovations, trends, and concerns, practical challenges encountered, and the solutions adopted in waste management and engineering, geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering, infrastructure engineering, and sustainable engineering. This book will be useful for academics, educators, policy makers and professionals working in the field of civil engineering, chemical engineering, environmental sciences and public policy.

Theoretical foundations of atmospheric remote sensing are electromagnetic theory, radiative transfer and inversion theory. This book provides an overview of these topics in a common context, compile the results of recent research, as well as fill the gaps, where needed. The following aspects are covered: principles of remote sensing, the atmospheric physics, foundations of the radiative transfer theory, electromagnetic absorption, scattering and propagation, review of computational techniques in radiative transfer, retrieval techniques as well as regularization principles of inversion theory. As such, the book provides a valuable resource for those who work with remote sensing data and want to get a broad view of theoretical foundations of atmospheric remote sensing. The book will be also useful for students and researchers working in such diverse fields like inverse problems, atmospheric physics, electromagnetic theory, and radiative transfer.