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Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > The hydrosphere > Oceanography (seas)
***AMAZON BEST BOOK OF DECEMBER*** ***A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR*** 'A miraculous, transcendental book' ED YONG 'Imbler is a terrific talent' SCIENCE MAGAZINE A young queer science writer on some of the ocean's strangest creatures and what they can teach us about human empathy and survival. As a mixed Chinese and white non-binary writer working in a largely white, male field, science journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena) and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler's debut weaves the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family and coming of age, implicitly connecting endangered sea life to marginalised human communities and asking how they and we adapt, survive and care for each other. This far-reaching, unique collection shatters our preconceptions about the sea and what it means to survive. 'Astounding' PHILIP HOARE 'A revelation' ISABELLA TREE
The TEX86 paleothermometer is based upon the distribution of archaeal membrane lipids ('GDGTs') in marine sediments. GDGTs are ubiquitous, abundant and relatively resistant to degradation; as such, the TEX86 paleothermometer has been used to reconstruct sea surface temperature (SST) during the Cenozoic and early Mesozoic. We review the principles of the TEX86 proxy and developments made over the last two decades. We also discuss its application as a paleotemperature proxy and explore existing challenges and limitations.
Covering around 70 per cent of our planet's surface and home to more than 200,000 known species, the world's oceans are vital to life on Earth. However, despite producing around half the world's oxygen and helping to regulate our climate and weather patterns, human behaviour has put our incredible oceans and the amazing animals within them at risk. In The Big Book of the Ocean, we go beneath the surface to explore the fascinating secrets of the sea and take an in-depth look at some of the planet's magnificent marine creatures, from killer whales and sea turtles to seahorses and starfish. We also explore what we can do to help protect these vital environments and discover ten of the most endangered ocean species.
Teeming with weird and wonderful life--giant clams and mussels, tubeworms, "eyeless" shrimp, and bacteria that survive on sulfur--deep-sea hot-water springs are found along rifts where sea-floor spreading occurs. The theory of plate tectonics predicted the existence of these hydrothermal vents, but they were discovered only in 1977. Since then the sites have attracted teams of scientists seeking to understand how life can thrive in what would seem to be intolerable or extreme conditions of temperature and fluid chemistry. Some suspect that these vents even hold the key to understanding the very origins of life. Here a leading expert provides the first authoritative and comprehensive account of this research in a book intended for students, professionals, and general readers. Cindy Lee Van Dover, an ecologist, brings nearly two decades of experience and a lively writing style to the text, which is further enhanced by two hundred illustrations, including photographs of vent communities taken in situ. The book begins by explaining what is known about hydrothermal systems in terms of their deep-sea environment and their geological and chemical makeup. The coverage of microbial ecology includes a chapter on symbiosis. Symbiotic relationships are further developed in a section on physiological ecology, which includes discussions of adaptations to sulfide, thermal tolerances, and sensory adaptations. Separate chapters are devoted to trophic relationships and reproductive ecology. A chapter on community dynamics reveals what has been learned about the ways in which vent communities become established and why they persist, while a chapter on evolution and biogeography examines patterns of species diversity and evolutionary relationships within chemosynthetic ecosystems. Cognate communities such as seeps and whale skeletons come under scrutiny for their ability to support microbial and invertebrate communities that are ecologically and evolutionarily related to hydrothermal faunas. The book concludes by exploring the possibility that life originated at hydrothermal vents, a hypothesis that has had tremendous impact on our ideas about the potential for life on other planets or planetary bodies in our solar system.
This book focuses on the evaluation of wave energy in the Maritime Silk Road. Firstly, it compares wave energy and other main energy sources, and then discusses the various disadvantages. It also presents the current research and the difficulties of wave energy evaluation, and systematically analyzes the climatic characteristics of the wave energy, including the temporal-spatial distribution and climatic trend of a series of key factors (e.g. wave power density, availability, richness, stability, energy direction, energy storage). It then describes the design of a short-term forecasting scheme and a long-term projection scheme of wave energy suitable for the Maritime Silk Road, to serve as a plan for the daily operation and long-term development of wave energy. Further, it highlights the wave energy analysis and decision-making in the context of the remote islands and reefs, using Sri Lanka is taken as a case study. Lastly, it presents the first wave energy resource dataset for the Maritime Silk Road. This book is one of a series of publications on the 21st century Maritime Silk Road (shortened as "Maritime Silk Road") that covers the characteristics of the marine environment and marine new energy, remote islands and reef construction, climate change, early warning of wave disasters, legal escort, marine environment and energy big data construction, contributing to the safe and efficient construction of the Maritime Silk Road. It aims to improve our knowledge of the ocean, and so improve the capacity for marine construction, enhance the viability of remote islands and reefs, ease the energy crisis and protect the ecological environment and improve the quality of life of residents along the Maritime Silk Road, as well as to protect the rights, and interests of the countries and regions participating in the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. This book is a valuable reference resource for decision-makers, researchers, and marine engineers working in the related fields.
Den untersten Teil der Erdatmosphare, der von der Erdoberflache direkt beeinflusst wird, nennt man die atmospharische Grenzschicht. Sie gehort zur unmittelbaren Umwelt der meisten Lebewesen (Mensch, Tier, Pflanzenwelt) und erhalt dadurch und durch viele ihrer eigenen Prozesse und Eigenschaften eine besondere Bedeutung. Deshalb hat sich auch ein eigenes Teilgebiet der Meteorologie, die Grenzschicht-Meteorologie, entwickelt. Dieses Buch stellt die wesentlichen Grundlagen dieser Disziplin zusammen und erlautert sie. Dabei stehen einerseits physikalische Gesetze der Hydrodynamik (z. B. der Turbulenz) und der Thermodynamik, andererseits die stark interdisziplinar ausgerichtete Mikrometeorologie bzw. Mikroklimatologie im Vordergrund des Interesses. Dieses Buch mochte Leser ansprechen, die an der Meteorologie und vor allem an der bodennahen Atmosphare interessiert sind. Daruber hinaus wendet es sich an alle, die sich mit der Wechselwirkung zwischen Erdoberflache und Atmosphare auseinandersetzen, z. B. an Geographen, Bodenkundler und Pflanzenokologen."
This book discusses the sources of uncertainty in future model projections of the tropical Pacific SST warming pattern under global warming. It mainly focuses on cloud radiation feedback and ocean dynamical effect, which reveal to be the two greatest sources of uncertainty in the tropical Pacific SST warming pattern. Moreover, the book presents a correction for model projections of the tropical Pacific SST warming pattern based on the concept of "observational constraints"; the corrected projection exhibits a more El Nino-like warming pattern.
This monograph presents cutting-edge research on dispersive wave modelling, and the numerical methods used to simulate the propagation and generation of long surface water waves. Including both an overview of existing dispersive models, as well as recent breakthroughs, the authors maintain an ideal balance between theory and applications. From modelling tsunami waves to smaller scale coastal processes, this book will be an indispensable resource for those looking to be brought up-to-date in this active area of scientific research. Beginning with an introduction to various dispersive long wave models on the flat space, the authors establish a foundation on which readers can confidently approach more advanced mathematical models and numerical techniques. The first two chapters of the book cover modelling and numerical simulation over globally flat spaces, including adaptive moving grid methods along with the operator splitting approach, which was historically proposed at the Institute of Computational Technologies at Novosibirsk. Later chapters build on this to explore high-end mathematical modelling of the fluid flow over deformed and rotating spheres using the operator splitting approach. The appendices that follow further elaborate by providing valuable insight into long wave models based on the potential flow assumption, and modified intermediate weakly nonlinear weakly dispersive equations. Dispersive Shallow Water Waves will be a valuable resource for researchers studying theoretical or applied oceanography, nonlinear waves as well as those more broadly interested in free surface flow dynamics.
The beach and adjacent shoreface are the most dynamic part of the Earth’s surface. They represent a narrow zone where waves, tides and winds continuously interact, producing, wherever sediment is available, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of beach systems. Beaches are also the focus of intense pressure from users and developers, and for these reasons alone a knowledge of beach systems and their morphodynamics is critical to their sustainable management. This book is the first to provide an in-depth and holistic view of beach systems, looking both in detail at the dynamics of the shoreface, surf, swash and back beach zones, as well as globally at the range of parameters which influence regional variation in beach systems from the tropics to the poles. Furthermore it examines the relationship between beaches and ancillary dune systems, and has chapters on beach ecology, safety, stratification and barrier evolution. The book is designed for use in the classroom and the office, being aimed at university level students and coastal professionals.
'Thrilling' Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 'Authoritative and furious, urgent and persuasive' Sunday Times 'Compelling ... Roberts is that precious pearl: a practising scientist who not only knows his field inside out, but also understands how to write' Guardian Oceans are the most mysterious places on earth. Their depths remain largely unexplored, yet ninety-five percent of the planet's habitable space lies within them. And now the life they support is in the balance. Callum Roberts uses his lifetime's experience working with the oceans to take us on a panoramic tour beneath the seas, exploring the richness of life in the deep and how it has altered over the centuries. He shows the catastrophic impact of humanity on the oceans, but also how we can restore them to life. 'For anyone who loves the sea, Ocean of Life is a wake-up call, an urgent alert' Daily Mail 'At the heart of this book is a deep love of the ocean and a profound concern for its viability as a resource for us all' Nature 'An impressive history ... one of this book's strengths is the many solutions Roberts outlines' Financial Times
A vivid portrait of how Naval oversight shaped American oceanography, revealing what difference it makes who pays for science. What difference does it make who pays for science? Some might say none. If scientists seek to discover fundamental truths about the world, and they do so in an objective manner using well-established methods, then how could it matter who's footing the bill? History, however, suggests otherwise. In science, as elsewhere, money is power. Tracing the recent history of oceanography, Naomi Oreskes discloses dramatic changes in American ocean science since the Cold War, uncovering how and why it changed. Much of it has to do with who pays. After World War II, the US military turned to a new, uncharted theater of warfare: the deep sea. The earth sciences-particularly physical oceanography and marine geophysics-became essential to the US Navy, which poured unprecedented money and logistical support into their study. Science on a Mission brings to light how this influx of military funding was both enabling and constricting: it resulted in the creation of important domains of knowledge but also significant, lasting, and consequential domains of ignorance. As Oreskes delves into the role of patronage in the history of science, what emerges is a vivid portrait of how naval oversight transformed what we know about the sea. It is a detailed, sweeping history that illuminates the ways funding shapes the subject, scope, and tenor of scientific work, and it raises profound questions about the purpose and character of American science. What difference does it make who pays? The short answer is: a lot.
Originally published in 1981, Living Shores was for many years the standard reference for marine science students but was also embraced by a popular market for its fascinating insights into marine and coastal habitats and the life they support. After a long absence, this classic has been revived and thoroughly reworked to incorporate the many dramatic changes that our oceans and coasts have undergone over the past few decades. This book is the first of a two volume set, and examines the different marine ecosystems and how humankind interacts with them. It discusses the evolution of the sea and continents and looks at the ecology of coastal systems, including intertidal zones, beaches, dunes, estuaries, islands, kelp forests and reefs. The book unpacks the relationship between humans and the marine environment, and the consequences of harvesting and mining to meet our needs. It also addresses the impact of climate change, and highlights what can be done to protect our environment. Richly supported by full-colour photography and numerous explanatory illustrations, diagrams and graphs, this book will prove invaluable to students and teachers but will also appeal to anyone with a fascination for nature and our marine world in particular.
Tracking initial ocean (de)oxygenation is critical to better constrain the coevolution of life and environment. Development of thallium isotopes has provided evidence to track the global manganese oxide burial which responds to early (de)oxygenation for short-term climate events. Modern oxic seawater thallium isotope values are recorded in organic-rich sediments deposited below an anoxic water column. An expansion of reducing conditions decrease manganese oxide burial and shifts the seawater thallium isotope composition more positive. Recent work documents that thallium isotopes are perturbed prior to carbon isotope excursions, suggesting ocean deoxygenation is a precursor for increased organic carbon burial. This Element provides an introduction to the application of thallium isotopes, case studies, and future directions.
This book presents the R software environment as a key tool for oceanographic computations and provides a rationale for using R over the more widely-used tools of the field such as MATLAB. Kelley provides a general introduction to R before introducing the 'oce' package. This package greatly simplifies oceanographic analysis by handling the details of discipline-specific file formats, calculations, and plots. Designed for real-world application and developed with open-source protocols, oce supports a broad range of practical work. Generic functions take care of general operations such as subsetting and plotting data, while specialized functions address more specific tasks such as tidal decomposition, hydrographic analysis, and ADCP coordinate transformation. In addition, the package makes it easy to document work, because its functions automatically update processing logs stored within its data objects. Kelley teaches key R functions using classic examples from the history of oceanography, specifically the work of Alfred Redfield, Gordon Riley, J. Tuzo Wilson, and Walter Munk. Acknowledging the pervasive popularity of MATLAB, the book provides advice to users who would like to switch to R. Including a suite of real-life applications and over 100 exercises and solutions, the treatment is ideal for oceanographers, technicians, and students who want to add R to their list of tools for oceanographic analysis.
Quaternary Paleoenvironments examines the drowned landscapes exposed as extensive and attractive territory for prehistoric human settlement during the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene, when sea levels dropped to 120m-135m below their current levels. This volume provides an overview of the geological, geomorphological, climatic and sea-level history of the European continental shelf as a whole, as well as a series of detailed regional reviews for each of the major sea basins. The nature and variable attractions of the landscapes and resources available for human exploitation are examined, as are the conditions under which archaeological sites and landscape features are likely to have been preserved, destroyed or buried by sediment during sea-level rise. The authors also discuss the extent to which we can predict where to look for drowned landscapes with the greatest chance of success, with frequent reference to examples of preserved prehistoric sites in different submerged environments. Quaternary Paleoenvironments will be of interest to archaeologists, geologists, marine scientists, palaeoanthropologists, cultural heritage managers, geographers, and all those with an interest in the drowned landscapes of the continental shelf.
The Ocean Book is full of easy-to-read, beautiful infographics that present the key issues facing our oceans. Rising sea levels, growing rubbish patches and overfishing are putting our oceans in grave danger. Though we love our oceans, we must learn to cherish them. This book will help readers realize how we cause the problems and how we can solve them.
Oceanographers and the Cold War is about patronage, politics, and the community of scientists. It is the first book to examine the study of the oceans during the Cold War era and explore the international focus of American oceanographers, taking into account the roles of the US Navy, US foreign policy, and scientists throughout the world. Jacob Darwin Hamblin demonstrates that to understand the history of American oceanography, one must consider its role in both conflict and cooperation with other nations. Paradoxically, American oceanography after World War II was enmeshed in the military-industrial complex while characterized by close international cooperation. The military dimension of marine science--with its involvement in submarine acoustics, fleet operations, and sea-launched nuclear missiles--coexisted with data exchange programs with the Soviet Union and global operations in seas without borders. From an uneasy cooperation with the Soviet bloc in the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, to the NATO Science Committee in the late 1960s, which excluded the Soviet Union, to the US Marine Sciences Council, which served as an important national link between scientists and the government, Oceanographers and the Cold War reveals the military and foreign policy goals served by US government involvement in cooperative activities between scientists, such as joint cruises and expeditions. It demonstrates as well the extent to which oceanographers used international cooperation as a vehicle to pursue patronage from military, government, and commercial sponsors during the Cold War, as they sought support for their work by creating "disciples of marine science" wherever they could.
The only book that offers a comprehensive and fully up-to-date coverage of hydroacoustic ocean exploration, this work deals with the diagnostics of non-uniformities in a water medium using the hydroacoustic parametric antenna. The non-uniformities of the water medium in the study are of geometrically regular shape, i.e., the shape of a sphere, a cylinder, and a spheroid. An account is given of theoretical and experimental studies of wave processes that occur in the event of the scattering of non-linearly interacting acoustic waves at a sphere, a cylinder, and a spheroid. Scattering problems are formulated; solutions to the inhomogeneous wave equation are found in the first and second approximations using the successive approximations method. For the first time, high-frequency asymptotic expressions of acoustic pressure for all spectral components of the secondary field are obtained for the nonlinear scattering problem. The scattering diagrams are calculated and plotted, and then analyzed and compared. Results of experimental studies of the parametric acoustic antenna field scattering at solid steel spheres are presented. Experimental scattering diagrams both for the parametric antenna pump waves and for the secondary field waves including the difference frequency wave, the sum frequency wave, and the second harmonic wave are presented. 3D modeling of wave processes is also considered. A must have for researchers and specialists in nonlinear hydroacoustics and ocean acoustics; it also may be of use for postgraduates and students specializing in hydroacoustics and ocean exploration.
This indispensable handbook provides state-of-the-art information and common sense guidelines, covering the design, construction, modernization of port and harbor related marine structures. The design procedures and guidelines address the complex problems and illustrate factors that should be considered and included in appropriate design scenarios.
Water resources are of enormous societal and ecological importance. In coastal areas, they are under ever greater pressure due to population growth, more affluent lifestyles, food production and the growing tourism industry. Changes to the coastal landscape, through urbanisation and land reclamation, and by natural processes such as climate change and sea level rise, modify the interaction between seawater and groundwater and put water resources at risk. This comprehensive volume covers both theory and practice of coastal hydrogeology. It discusses hydrochemistry; submarine groundwater discharge; groundwater management; palaeo-hydrology; land reclamation; climate change and sea level rise; and mathematical models of variable-density flow. With its up-to-date coverage and numerous case studies that illustrate practical implications, it is perfect for students, practitioners, managers and researchers who wish to develop an in-depth understanding of topics relevant to sustainably managing coastal groundwater resources.
In recent decades, great progress has been made in our understanding of zonal jets across many subjects - atmospheric science, oceanography, planetary science, geophysical fluid dynamics, plasma physics, magnetohydrodynamics, turbulence theory - but communication between researchers from different fields has been weak or non-existent. Even the terminology in different fields may be so disparate that researchers working on similar problems do not understand each other. This comprehensive, multidisciplinary volume will break cross-disciplinary barriers and aid the advancement of the subject. It presents a state-of-the-art summary of all relevant branches of the physics of zonal jets, from the leading experts. The phenomena and concepts are introduced at a level accessible to beginning graduate students and researchers from different fields. The book also includes a very extensive bibliography.
What is happening in our oceans? By describing their main elements, this book shows how and why the oceans are being transformed, and suggests possible future scenarios to address this complex, yet often-asked, question. The ocean is being dramatically transformed, but the magnitude of this transformation remains unclear since the ocean is largely inaccessible and still unknown: there is more information about the outer universe than about the deepest parts of our oceans. The author, a marine biologist with extensive research experience, offers a holistic view of our oceans. Focusing on fishing, pollution and the effects of climate change, he identifies and describes the changes occurring in all marine ecosystems, and discusses the long-passed state of equilibrium.
This book will help readers learn the basic skills needed to study microfossils especially those without a formal background in paleontology. It details key principles, explains how to identify different groups of microfossils, and provides insight into their potential applications in solving geologic problems. Basic principles are addressed with examples that explore the strengths and limitations of microfossils and their geological records. This overview provides an understanding of taphonomy and quality of the fossil records, biomineralization and biogeochemistry, taxonomy, concepts of species, and basic concepts of ecology. Readers learn about the major groups of microfossils, including their morphology, ecology, and geologic history. Coverage includes: foraminifera, ostracoda, coccolithophores, pteropods, radiolaria, diatoms, silicoflagellates, conodonts, dinoflagellates, acritarch, and spores and pollens. In this coverage, marine microfossils, and particularly foraminifera, are discussed in more detail compared with the other groups as they continue to play a major role in most scientific investigations. Among the various tracers of earth history, microfossils provide the most diverse kinds of information to earth scientists. This richly illustrated volume will help students and professionals understand microfossils, and provide insight on how to work with them to better understand evolution of life, and age and the paleoenvironment of sedimentary strata.
The book describes different approaches to the analysis of heat and dynamic processes in the ocean-atmospheric interface with satellite passive radiometric observations at microwaves. It examines the feasibility of determining synoptic, seasonal and year-to-year variations of sensible, latent and momentum fluxes to a useful accuracy using the DMSP SSM/I and EOS Aqua AMSR-E data directly from the measured brightness temperatures. An important object in the studies is the North Atlantic with emphasize on the areas with high midlatitude cyclon activity: here the main results have been obtained by combining data from the vessel experiments NEWFOUEX-88, ATLANTEX-90 and the data of microwave radiometers from the DMSP and EOS Aqua satellites. The role of vertical turbulent and horizontal advective heat transfer in forming interrelations between the brightness temperature of the system ocean-atmosphere and surface heat fluxes in the range of synoptic time scales is analyzed. Special sections of the book describe some results of analysis of reaction of the system ocean-atmosphere on passing of the tropical cyclone Katrina (August 2005) in the Florida Strait as well as a behavior of the system in the period of a time preceding to origination the cyclone Humberto (September 2007) in the Mexico Gulf. The long-term goal of this research is the search for effects and regularities, which can explain the reasons for the tropical cyclones appearance. Some characteristics of the tropical cyclones (brightness temperature and heat contrasts, etc.) are compared with those for midlatitude cyclones. At the same time as covering a key topic area with implications for global warming research, this text is also usefull to students who want to gain insight into application of satellite microwave radiometric methods for studying the air-sea interaction. Key themes: microwave radiometry, air-sea interaction, midlatitude and tropical cyclones, atmosphere boundary layer, heat and momentum surface fluxes. |
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