A top priority in climate research is obtaining broad-extent and long-term data to support analyses of historical patterns and trends, and for model development and evaluation. Along with directly measured climate data from the present and recent past, it is important to obtain estimates of long past climate variations spanning multiple centuries and millennia. These longer time perspectives are needed for assessing the unusualness of recent climate changes, as well as for providing insight on the range, variation and overall dynamics of the climate system over time spans exceeding available records from instruments, such as rain gauges and thermometers. Tree rings have become increasingly valuable in providing this long-term information because extensive data networks have been developed in temperate and boreal zones of the Earth, and quantitative methods for analyzing these data have advanced. Tree rings are among the most useful paleoclimate information sources available because they provide a high degree of chronological accuracy, high replication, and extensive spatial coverage spanning recent centuries. With the expansion and extension of tree-ring data and analytical capacity new climatic insights from tree rings are being used in a variety of applications, including for interpretation of past changes in ecosystems and human societies. This volume presents an overview of the current state of dendroclimatology, its contributions over the last 30 years, and its future potential. The material included is useful not only to those who generate tree-ring records of past climate-dendroclimatologists, but also to users of their results-climatologists, hydrologists, ecologists and archeologists. 'With the pressing climatic questions of the 21st century demanding a deeper understanding of the climate system and our impact upon it, this thoughtful volume comes at critical moment. It will be of fundamental importance in not only guiding researchers, but in educating scientists and the interested lay person on the both incredible power and potential pitfalls of reconstructing climate using tree-ring analysis.', Glen M. MacDonald, UCLA Institute of the Environment, CA, USA 'This is an up-to-date treatment of all branches of tree-ring science, by the world's experts in the field, reminding us that tree rings are the most important source of proxy data on climate change. Should be read by all budding dendrochronology scientists.', Alan Robock, Rutgers University, NJ, USA

This book provides an integrated assessment of issues related to climate variability and change, predictability and risks. The book deals with both the technical aspects of variability and (abrupt) climate change and the agricultural and economical impacts and consequences.

"Surging sea levels are inundating the coasts." "Hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming fiercer and more frequent." "Climate change will be an economic disaster." You've heard all this presented as fact. But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading. When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that "the science is settled." In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions-about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be-remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren't as clear as you've probably been led to believe. Now, one of America's most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn't say) about our changing climate. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience-including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration-to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, this book gives readers the tools to both understand the climate issue and be savvier consumers of science media in general. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines to the more nuanced science itself, showing us where it comes from and guiding us through the implications of the evidence. He dispels popular myths and unveils little-known truths: despite a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures actually decreased from 1940 to 1970. What's more, the models we use to predict the future aren't able to accurately describe the climate of the past, suggesting they are deeply flawed. Koonin also tackles society's response to a changing climate, using data-driven analysis to explain why many proposed "solutions" would be ineffective, and discussing how alternatives like adaptation and, if necessary, geoengineering will ensure humanity continues to prosper. Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science that you aren't getting elsewhere-what we know, what we don't, and what it all means for our future.

This book develops a discursive 'equalitarian' theoretical framework for studying African mining ecosystem issues and policy interventions. The theory of 'equalitarianism' is developed as an alternative to the reductionist approach that has dominated post-colonial debates about the classical jus ad bellum requirements to empower women in development spaces. However, the classical approach narrows the debate down to "women issues," rather than the 'whole-of-society.' As a consequence of this reductionism, women continue to be devalued in the mining sector, characterized by poverty traps, power struggles, and a lack of capacity to engage in large-scale mining (LSM) activities. This book advances principles for a holistic approach, and spells out the implications for women across the mining value chain. Drawing on moral scholarship, the book poses that for women to gain access to strategic spaces in the mining sector, the drive for empowerment must be embedded within 'whole-of-society' principles. This book is of interest to scholars researching gender policy, public policy, political philosophy, conflictology, and human geography. It also offers practitioners a guide for evaluating their policy work on mainstreaming gender in the mining sector, presenting options for financing, forging partnership and planning for an inclusive economic development in Africa, and beyond.

A comprehensive study of climate; its fundamentals, its history, the recent effects of urban growth and the problems of forecasting.

This research monograph deals with the study of wave phenomena caused by winds in the world's oceans. Particular attention is paid to modern developments that take into account the propagation of ocean waves at global distances and their interaction with the sea bottom, ocean currents and the ice cover. With this book the author provides the first methodical presentation of the generation, evolution and propagation of wind-induced ocean waves.

This Open Access book provides detailed information about the incoming Mexican Emissions Trading System, including an analysis on why the system was implemented, how the system was designed, how it operates, how it could work, and how it could be strengthened by 2023 when it will be formally launched. This document is aimed at those who want to understand how an ETS can operate in an emerging economy. Although it has been written for experts and non-experts, this book does not provide the underlying theory of market-based instruments and emissions trading systems in general. The book can be read from start to finish, but can also be used as a reference for specific components of regional ETSs. The book draws upon a meticulous study of background documents and fieldwork from different authors to tell the story of how a Mexican ETS, the first of its kind in Latin America, can be set in the country. The emissions trading system cover many greenhouse gas emissions and has been hailed as one of the cornerstones of the Mexican climate policy. The book also examines and explains how the ETS is designed and implemented.

Even lay readers of environmental issues will find the book extremely useful in understanding the problems facing mankind. The author tries to explain the issues, various international protocols and the jargons associated with this field of specialization in an easily to follow format.

"Understanding the Earth System" aims to contribute to the timely discussion on Global Change of the Earth system. The discussion centers around the synthesis of procedures effecting both the natural and social sciences. The concept of Earth System Analysis, although controversially discussed, will be the focus of future scientific programs related to Global Change. The main problems are overpopulation, water shortages and climate change.

This book describes the challenges for the natural environments and local communities in the future. Among the high mountains of Africa, only Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and the Rwenzori Mountains are still capped with glaciers. The retreating rate of these glaciers has accelerated, and they are expected to disappear in the near future. In the area around Mount Kenya, the precipitation is generally low, such that rainfall cannot stably supply water for farmlands and daily life. It has been revealed that the glacial meltwater has produced springs at the foot of the mountain. It is therefore important to characterize the condition of water sources near Mount Kenya for use by local people. This book discusses the relationships between the actual state of the climate and glacier shrinkage around Mount Kenya, the surrounding vegetation, soil, and water environments, and the lives of the foothill region inhabitants confronting the glacier shrinkage. This book is valuable in the contemporary age, when the assurance of a sustainable relationship between nature and mankind is critical.

This book is an ordered collection of tutorial lectures on the physical processes in the polar upper atmosphere given at the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on "The Exploration of the Polar Upper Atmosphere" held at Lillehammer, Norway, May 5-16, 1980. The polar cap is an important part of the high latitude atmosphere not only because of circulation and horizontal trans port in the neutral atmosphere and convection in the ionosphere, but also because of its unique energy sources and sinks. In addition, solar wind plasma is led into-the upper atmosphere by the geomagnetic field at the poles, and the polar cap is, as stated by Tutorial Leader Roederer in this volume, "the place where outer space meets earth." The atmosphere at lower latitudes is well-known to the ground-based observer, and the advent of satellite observations was simply the beginning of a new perspective. The exploration of the atmosphere at polar latitudes, however, proceeded in quite the opposite manner, and satellite maps of the polar caps may be compared with a relatively meagre set of ground-based data. Recent efforts to extend the polar observations from the ground have resulted in the need for a review of the physical principles and processes occurring in the polar upper atmosphere. The interdisciplinary nature of these efforts led to the emphasis here on a tutorial program."

This book comprehensively identifies most reservoir rock properties using a very simple approach. It aids junior and senior reservoir and geology engineers to understand the main fundamentals of rock properties. The book provides examples and solutions that can help the readers to quickly understand the topic. This book covers reservoir rock properties and their relationship to each other. The book includes many figures, tables, exercises, and flow diagrams to simplify the topics in different approaches.

This book collates the written contributions of the Second Conference on Air Pollution Modelling and Simulation (APMS 2001). A wide range of current topics is covered, focusing on three challenging issues: (1) the modelling issue of complex, multiphase, atmospheric chemistry; (2) the numerical issue associated with comprehensive three-dimensional chemistry-transport models; and (3) the key issues of data assimilation and inverse modelling. State-of-the art research is presented with many operational procedures applied at either forecast agencies or companies.

This book offers a comprehensive review of the various options for improving the performance of overhead power lines in winter conditions, taking into account both mechanical and electrical aspects. Experience within the CIGRE community reveals many strategies to protect overhead power lines from damage caused by heavy build-up of ice and snow or electrical issues such as insulator icing flashovers. The initial approach is to consider the predicted ice loads from the available databases. This is supplemented with some fundamental aspects of icing physics that affect accretion rate as well as factors in ice shedding on traditional (metal, ceramic) and novel treated surfaces. These ice physics concepts structure the ways to categorize and evaluate methods to reduce or prevent icing on conductors and ground wires or to prevent flashover of insulators. Many utilities in cold climate regions have developed and used methods and strategies to reduce ice loads using anti-icing (AI) and / or de-icing (DI) methods. In general, AI methods are used before or early during ice build-up, while DI methods are activated during and sometimes after ice build-up. The book describes and discusses some historical, operational, or potential AI / DI systems in the ice physics context. This supports a comprehensive review of AI coatings including concepts, relevant material properties, application methods, and finally test methods for characterizing the long-term performance.

Since 2008, the Global Center of Excellence (COE) at Kyoto University, Japan, has been engaged in a program called "Energy Science in the Age of Global Warming-Toward a CO2 Zero-Emission Energy System." Its aim is to establish an international education and research platform to foster educators, researchers, and policy makers who can develop technologies and propose policies for establishing a CO2 zero-emission society no longer dependent on fossil fuels. It is well known that the energy problem cannot simply be labeled a technological one, as it is also deeply involved with social and economic issues. The establishment of a "low-carbon energy science" as an interdisciplinary field integrating social sciences with natural sciences is necessary. The Global COE is setting out a zero-emission technology roadmap and is promoting socioeconomic studies of energy, studies of new technologies for renewable energies, and research for advanced nuclear energy. It has also established the Global COE Unit for Energy Science Education to support young researchers as they apply their skills and knowledge and a broad international perspective to respond to issues of energy and the environment in our societies. Comprising the proceedings of the Second International Symposium of the Global COE Program, this book follows on the earlier volume "Zero-Carbon Energy Kyoto 2009," published in March 2010.

This book comprises select papers presented at the International Conference on Construction Materials and Environment (ICCME 2020). The topics discussed revolve around the identification and utilization of novel construction materials primarily in the areas of structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation engineering, and environmental engineering. The volume presents a compilation of thoroughly studied and utilized sustainable construction materials in different areas of civil engineering. Newly developed testing methodologies, physical modelling methods, numerical studies, and other latest techniques discussed in this book can prove to be useful for researchers and practitioners across the globe.

Hurricanes are nature's most destructive agents. Widespread interest surrounds the possibility that they might get even more destructive in the future. Policy makers consider it a call for action. Answers about when and by how much hurricanes will change are sought by financial institutions especially industry. And scientists are challenged by the range and interactions of the processes involved. This book, arising from the 2nd International Summit on Hurricanes and Climate Change, contains new research on topics related to hurricanes and climate change since the 1st Summit. Chapters are grouped into research studies using global climate models and those taking empirical and statistical approaches. The latter include investigations of basin-wide and regional hurricane activity.

This book focuses on motions of incompressible ?uids of a freely moving surface being in?uenced by both the Earth's rotation and density strati?cation. In contrast to traditional textbooks in the ?eld of geophysical ?uid dynamics, such as those by by Cushman-Roisin (1994) and Gill (1982), this book uses the method of proce- oriented hydrodynamic modelling to illustrate a rich variety of ?uid phenomena. To this end, the reader can adopt the model codes, found on the Springer server accompanying this book, to reproduce most graphs of this book and, even better, to create animation movies. The reader can also employ the codes as templates for own independent studies. This can be done by a lay person as a hobby activity, undergraduate or postgraduate students as part of their education, or professional scientists as part of research. Exercises of this book are run with open-source software that can be freely downloaded from the Internet. This includes the FORTRAN 95 compiler "G95" used for execution of model simulations, the data visualisation program "SciLab", and "ImageMagick" for the creation of graphs and GIF animations, which can be watched with most Internet browsers.

Climate change is a very complex subject. Scientists from many countries around the world strive to understand how climate works and then try to prepare for the changes that may lie ahead. This publication includes a series of activities for students with background information and teaching tips on current climate issues. It brings together several sources of data on the earth's climate, including newspaper cuttings and examines Mario Molina's work on ozone and its impact on global politics. Climate Change includes student worksheets to encourage students to form their own opinions based on the data and to generate classroom discussion and debate. It is a flexible resource and can be used to study both ideas and evidence and the nature of science, and also when teaching key skills. This book is aimed at teachers of 11-19 year old students and contains teachers' notes, background information, photocopiable student worksheets and answers.

This book, for the first time, introduces comprehensively all main topics of lifeline earthquake engineering, including the structure analysis, network evaluation, and network design. The distinctive features involved in this book are the construction of theories and methods for stochastic analysis of structures based the physical idea, probability analytical algorithms for network evaluation by employing Boolean Algebra, functional evaluation of water distribution networks using hydraulic analysis, and network design methods by employing genetic, simulated annealing, and hybrid algorithms.

Climate change is one of the major environmental concern of many countries in the world. Negotiations to control potential climate changes have been taking place, from Rio to Kyoto, for the last five years. There is a widespread consciousness that the risk of incurring in relevant economic and environmental losses due to climate change is high. Scientific analyses have become more and more precise on the likely impacts of climate change. According to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, current trends in greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions may indeed cause the average global temperature to increase by 1-3. 5 DegreesC over the next 100 years. As a result, sea levels are expected to rise by 15 to 95 em and climate zones to shift towards the poles by 150 to 550 km in mid latitudes. In order to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change, the IPCC report concludes that a stabilization of atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide - one of the major GHGs - at 550 parts per million by volume (ppmv) is recommended. This would imply a reduction of global emissions of about 50 per cent with respect to current levels. In this context, countries are negotiating to achieve a world-wide agreement on GHGs emissions control in order to stabilize climate changes. Despite the agreement on targets achieved in Kyoto, many issues still remain unresolved.

This book corresponds to the fifth volume of the series focused on Processes in GeoMedia and their research on the dynamic of natural systems, including theoretical and experimental studies of the processes occurring in the earth's bowels, the ocean, and the atmosphere. This volume pays particular attention to geomechanical aspects of the production of hydrocarbons. This fifth volume of Processes in GeoMedia corresponds to the English edition of the journal Processes in GeoMedia, published originally in Russian.

Various problems in climate research, which require the use of advanced statistical techniques, are considered in this book. The examples emphasize the notion that the knowledge of statistical techniques alone is not sufficient. Good physical understanding of the specific problems in climate research is needed to guide the researcher in choosing the right approach to obtain meaningful answers. The second edition of this book, originally based on contributions given during a school sponsored by the European Union on the Italian island of Elba, continues to be based on these general principles. The general outline has been kept the same, covering aspects such as the examination of the observational record, stochastic climate models, analytical techniques, e.g. EOF, teleconnections and so on, but the chapters have been revised and updated, in some cases extensively, to cover the advances in the field in the years since the first edition.