A revolutionary vision of how we can create a sustainable planet, this book focuses on two critical global issues: rapid population growth and a human-induced climate change. Firor and Jacobsen summarize the current status of these two issues, show how they are related to one another, and prescribe steps that governments, societies, and individuals can adopt to stabilize both population and climate. Illustrations.

The dynamics of the atmosphere, ocean, and climate are inherently nonlinear and complex, making computer models ideal for accurate, complete understanding of these systems. In the process of building and using models, the reader of this book will learn how the different components of climate systems function, interact with each other, and vary over time. Topics covered include the stability of climate, earth's energy balance, parcel dynamics in the atmosphere, the mechanisms of heat transport in the climate system, and mechanisms of climate variability. Special attention is given to the effects of climate change. The book is accompanied by a cross-platform CD containing models and a run-time version of STELLA (R) software. Walter A. Robinson is Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Chamaign.

This book is a compilation of papers contributed by researchers and scientists from SAARC nations and deals with high-impact weather conditions, their prediction and potential consequences for populations in the SAARC region. There have been a number of recent advances in our understanding and prediction of cyclones, severe thunderstorms, squalls, heat and cold waves, droughts and heavy rainfall, based on the latest observational data and NWP modeling platform. The SAARC region is vulnerable to high-impact weather events because of geophysical features like high mountains, plateaus and vast oceans. As our climate continues to change over the coming years, the likelihood of extreme and potentially high-impact weather and climate events will be at its highest when natural and anthropogenic effects combine. All chapters were written by leading experts in their respective research and operational fields. The book reviews the latest research, future needs, forecasting skills and societal impacts of extreme weather events and offers high-quality reference material for weather forecasters, disaster managers and researchers.

A multidecadal cooling is known to have occurred in Europe in the final decades of the sixteenth-century. It is still open to debate as to what might have caused the underlying shifts in atmospheric circulation and how these changes affected societies. This book is the fruit of interdisciplinary cooperation among 37 scientists including climatologists, hydrologists, glaciologists, dendroclimatologists, and economic and cultural historians. The known documentary climatic evidence from six European countries is compared to results of tree-ring studies. Seasonal temperature and precipitation are estimated from this data and monthly mean surface pressure patterns in the European area are reconstructed for outstanding anomalies. Results are compared to fluctuations of Alpine glaciers and to changes in the frequency of severe floods and coastal storms. Moreover, the impact of climate change on grain prices and wine production is assessed. Finally, it is convincingly argued that witches at that time were burnt as scapegoats for climatic change.

Climate Change and Extreme Events uses a multidisciplinary approach to discuss the relationship between climate change-related weather extremes and their impact on human lives. Topics discussed are grouped into four major sections: weather parameters, hydrological responses, mitigation and adaptation, and governance and policies, with each addressed with regard to past, present and future perspectives. Sections give an overview of weather parameters and hydrological responses, presenting current knowledge and a future outlook on air and stream temperatures, precipitation, storms and hurricanes, flooding, and ecosystem responses to these extremes. Other sections cover extreme weather events and discuss the role of the state in policymaking. This book provides a valuable interdisciplinary resource to climate scientists and meteorologists, environmental researchers, and social scientists interested in extreme weather.

This book provides an overview of the early years of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and reviews the work of the institute over the past 30 years, describing along the way the European approach to medium-range weather forecasting. Its combination of historical view and scientific insight is unique.

Weather radar systems provide data necessary for the understanding of weather systems, improved forecasts (especially critical for severe weather), hydrological applications, flood warnings and also for climate research in which ground verification is needed for global precipitation measurements by satellites. This book offers an accessible overview of advanced methods, applications and modern research from the European perspective. An extensive introductory chapter summarizes the principles of weather radars and discusses the potential of modern radar systems, including Doppler and polarisation techniques, data processing, and error-correction methods. Addressing both specialist researchers and nonspecialists from related areas, this book will also be useful for graduate students planning to specialize in this field.

During confined flow of bulk solids in silos some characteristic phenomena can be created, such as: sudden and significant increase of wall stresses, different flow patterns, formation and propagation of wall and interior shear zones, fluctuation of pressures and, strong autogenous dynamic effects.

These phenomena have not been described or explained in detail yet. The main intention of the experimental and theoretical research presented in this book is to explain the above mentioned phenomena in granular bulk solids and to describe them with numerical FE models verified by experimental results.

Oceans and the Atmospheric Carbon Content, presents an interdisciplinary overview of the role of the oceans as a carbon sink and its relation with pH increasing trends and climate change. This volume discusses topics such as: climate variability during the last deglaciation, based on a high-resolution pollen analysis; the potential impact of CO2 from large metropolitan areas over the adjacent coastal zones and the importance of having high resolution atmospheric CO2 data to estimate accurately air-sea CO2 exchanges; present- day CO2 fluxes in the coastal ocean and their potential feedbacks under global climate change; phytoplankton community responses to climate change with emphasis on decreasing pH trends in sea water and its ecological effects; pH decrease and its effects on sea-water chemistry from a ten year time-series; the effect of acidification on metal bioaccumulation; the effects of increasing temperatures and acidification on contaminant dynamics and availability to biota; the prevention of potential environmental impacts related to the geological sequestration of CO2. The book provides an updated synthesis of current concerns related to global change trends in the oceans with a strong emphasis on acidification. The content draws attention to the importance of dealing with observed global change trends and their effects upon the oceans using an interdisciplinary approach due to their complexity and interlinks between different areas of knowledge.

Proceedings of IAGA/IAMAP Joint Assembly, August--September 1977, Seattle, Washington

The lntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently summarized the state ofthe art in research on climate change (Climate Change 1995). The most up to date research findings have been divided into three volumes: * the Science ofClimate Change (working group I), * the Impacts, Adaption and Mitigation of Climate Change (working group II), and * the Economic and Social Dimensions ofClimate Change (working group III) There is a general consensus that a serious change in climate can only be avoided if the future emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced considerably from the business as usual projection and if at the same time the natural sinks for greenhouse gases, in particular that of CO , are maintained at the present level or 2 preferrably increased. Forests, forestry and forestry industry are important parts of the global carbon cycle and therefore they are also part of the mitigation potentials in at least a threefold way: 1. During the time period between 1980 and 1989 there was a net emission of CO from changes in tropical land use (mostly tropical deforestation) of 2 1. 6 +/- 1 GtC/a, but at the same time it was estimated that the forests in the northem hemisphere have taken up 0. 5 +/- 0. 5 GtC/a and additionally other terrestrial sinks (including tropical forests where no clearing took place) have been a carbon sink ofthe order of l. 3 +/- l.

Climate and Water: Transboundary Challenges in the Americas explores some of the ways that climate, hydrology, and water resource management converge at the borders between jurisdictions and countries in the western Hemisphere. This book is unique in focusing on case studies of climate-hydrology-water resource management in diverse contexts in South, Central, and North America. This book is singular in highlighting important problems arising from the very existence of boundaries drawn and defined by society. Addressing such problems takes on increasing urgency as the world becomes ever more inter connected and interdependent.

Target groups for this book include water resource managers and decision makers at levels from the international to the local; scientists involved in interdisciplinary studies of basic and applied climatology, hydrology, and environmental studies; and readers specializing in institutional analyses, including transboundary water law, policy analysis, and risk assessment. This book is also a useful text for college classes addressing natural resources management in general, and the transfer of scientific knowledge to society.

This book evolved from the 5th School of Environmental Research entitled Persistent Pollution Past, Present and Future," which has set a focus on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), heavy metals and aerosols.

-reconstruction of past changes based on the scientific analysis of natural archives such as ice cores and peat deposits,

-evaluation of the present environmental state by the integration of measurements and modelling and the establishment of cause-effect-patterns,

-assessment of possible environmental future scenarios including emission and climate change perspectives.

This book examines the possible impacts of climate change on hydrology and water resources in the vast arid region of Northwest China, which is one of the world's largest arid places. The first chapter offers an introductory discussion of the physical geography and socioeconomic conditions in the region. Chapters 2 through 7 discuss the climate system and hydrologic system changes in the region, and assess some implications of these changes in relation to potential evapotranspiration, the hydrological cycle and spatiotemporal variations of the snow cover and glaciers as measured via remote sensing, geographic information systems, and statistical analysis. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on model description and experimental design for interpreting the hydro-climatic process, emphasizing the integration of water, climate, and land ecosystems through field observations and computer-based simulations. Chapter 10 examines some extreme hydrological events and presents a study using the historical trend method to investigate the spatial and temporal variability of changing temperature and precipitation extremes in the hyper-arid region of Northwest China. A concluding chapter discusses possible strategies for sustainable watershed management. The contributors are acknowledged experts who bring broad, relevant experience on water resources research in China's cold and arid regions. The lessons of this volume will prove useful for understanding arid areas elsewhere in the world.

The phenomenon of evaporation in the natural environment is of interest in various diverse disciplines. This book is an attempt to present a coherent and organized introduction to theoretical concepts and relationships useful in analyzing this phe nomenon, and to give an outline of their history and their application. The main objective is to provide a better understanding of evaporation, and to connect some of the approaches and paradigms, that have been developed in different disciplines concerned with this phenomenon. The book is intended for professional scientists and engineers, who are active in hydrology, meteorology, agronomy, oceanography, climatology and related environ mental fields, and who wish to study prevailing concepts on evaporation. At the same time, I hope that the book will be useful to workers in fluid dynamics, who want to become acquainted with applications to an important and interesting natural phenomenon. As suggested in its subtitle, the book consists of three major parts. The first, consisting of Chapters I and 2, gives a general ouline of the problem and a history of the theories of evaporation from ancient times through the end of the nineteenth century. This history is far from exhaustive, but it sket hes the background and the ideas that led directly to the scientific revolution in Europe and, ultimately, to our present-day knowledge."

The NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Paleoclimatology and Paleometeorology: Modem and Past Patterns of Global Atmospheric Transport" (held at Oracle, Arizona, USA from November 17-19, 1987) brought together atmospheric chemists, physicists, and meteorologists who study the origin and transport of modem-day mineral and biological aerosols with geologists and paleobotanists who study the sedimentary record of eolian and hydrologic processes along with modelers who study and conceptualize the processes influencing atmospheric transport at present and in the past. Presentations at the workshop provided a guide to our present knowledge of the entire spectrum of processes and phenomena important to the generation, transport, and deposition of eolian terrigenous material that ultimately becomes part of the geologic record and the modeling techniques that used to represent these processes. The presenta tions on the geologic record of eolian deposition documented our present understanding of the na e and causes of climate change on time scales of the last glacial ages (tens of thousands of years) to time scales over which the arrangement of continents, mountains, and oceans has changed sub stantially (tens of millions of years). There has been a growing recognition of the importance of global climatic changes to the future well-being of humanity. In particular, the climatic response to human alterations to the earth's surface and chemical composition has led to concern over the agricultural, ecological, and societal impacts of such potential global changes."

Climate change is one of the most challenging global issues of our time. It is also a profoundly local issue. Cities can create innovative responses to climate change and, as key sites in the production and management of greenhouse gas emissions, will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability.
Cities and Climate Change is the first in-depth and interdisciplinary analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and illustrates the multi-level nature of climate change governance. It argues that the formation and implementation of local climate change policy has been limited by the resources and powers of local government, and by conflicts between economic and environmental objectives. As cities are critical arenas for the pursuit of sustainable development, these findings have significant implications for the prospects of mitigating climate change and achieving urban sustainability.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203219252

The science of climate change has experienced an extraordinary expansion in the period since the mid-1980s and is paralleled by considerable public and political awareness of related issues.
The degree of natural variability in, and the causes of, climate change have become particularly important points of debate and the past decade has seen many publications dealing with these issues. Indeed, the area of climate research as a whole is now so large, and the sources of data so diverse, that many researchers are unaware of significant developments across the field. This collection therefore aims to provide a balanced selection of published papers, so as to make easily available the existing breadth and depth of information.
Taken together, the set of volumes will provide for the researcher (a) a greater awareness of the evidence for natural variability of climate; (b) a perspective on the role of various forcing factors in climate change; (c) a selection of papers that argue both for, and against, the 'solar' and 'anthropogenic' hypotheses as explanations for recent and current climate change; (d) a sense of what future climate will be like, and what remains to be discovered or achieved.

Biomass burning profoundly affects atmospheric chemistry, the carbon cycle, and climate and may have done so for millions of years. Bringing together renowned experts from paleoecology, fire ecology, atmospheric chemistry, and organic chemistry, the volume elucidates the role of fire during global changes of the past and future. Topics covered include: the characterization of combustion products that occur in sediments, including char, soot/fly ash, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; the calibration of these constituents against atmospheric measurements from wildland and prescribed fire emissions; spatial and temporal patterns in combustion emissions at scales of individual burns to the globe.

This is a collection of articles written by mathematicians and physicists, designed to describe the state of the art in climate models with stochastic input. Mathematicians will benefit from a survey of simple models, while physicists will encounter mathematically relevant techniques at work.

Evidence shows that global climate change is occurring. Research and debate continue on the role of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in influencing climate change. Many sectors are or will be influenced by changing climate and climate variability, including increasing global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and increased frequency of unusual weather events. Agriculture and the world's supply of food and fiber are particularly vulnerable to such climate change.

Effects of Climate Change and Viarability on the Agricultural Production Systems provides an integrated assessment of global climate change's impact on agriculture at the farm level, in the context of farm level adaptation decisions. Ten agricultural areas in the Upper Midwest region - the heart of the United States' corn belt - were subjected to climate change and changing climate variability scenarios through simulations of future climate using results from general circulation models. Crop growth models, calibrated to the study sites, were used to simulate yields under varying climate conditions. Farm level production and economic analyses were performed to determine what adaptation strategies might be best utilized to maintain production and profitability for producers under conditions of global climate change and changing climate variability. Similar integrated analyses from Australia and Argentina provide comparisons from different regions.

The robust integrated systems methodology for assessing impacts and adaptation opportunities in several different major agricultural regions provides the reader with an example for similar endeavors. Also discussed are guidelines and useful analytical options for input suppliers, agricultural researchers, and agricultural producers to enable risk averting strategies and adaptations as global climate change plays out.