Theories and opinions about climate change abound – from those claiming human-induced climate change is already beyond control to those who express scepticism about the real extent of these changes.  How should we weigh up the scientific evidence, and what role does climate change play in the history of the Earth? In this comprehensive history of the climate and climate change, Antonello Provenzale explains how the planetary climate system works and how the climate has evolved over millions of years.  Starting from the catastrophic events that marked the early history of the Earth, including seas of magma, global glaciations and mass extinctions, he demonstrates how the climate has fluctuated between hot and cold periods, with the Earth hot and lush with forests at certain times and almost entirely covered by a thick layer of ice at others.  The mechanisms that determine the modifications of the climate are multiple and complex and include external factors, such as solar luminosity and variations in the Earth's orbit, as well as internal processes connecting the atmosphere, the oceans, the crust, the mantle and the biosphere, composed of living organisms. While the climate has fluctuated a great deal over the Earth’s long history, there are two features of our current situation that are a source of real concern.  First, the rise in temperature of the last fifty years has been extremely fast, making it difficult for the environment to adapt to the new conditions.  Second, the human population is much greater than it was in the past, and this population needs water, food, energy and shelter to survive and flourish.  If temperatures continue to rise as they have in recent decades, ours will not be an easy world in which to live. To appreciate what is at stake, we need to understand how the climate works and how human activity is affecting it – not in order to save the planet, which will do just fine on its own and probably better without us, but to save ourselves.

Transports in fluids can be approached from two complementary perspectives. In the Eulerian view of mixing, the focus is on the concentration field. In the Langrangian view, fluid parcels are followed around as they move with the flow, experiencing chaotic or stochastic motion. This book examines both pictures, presenting a number of theoretical and experimental lectures on various aspects of transport and mixing of active and passive particles in geophysical flows.

Transports in fluids can be approached from two complementary perspectives. In the Eulerian view of mixing, the focus is on the concentration field. In the Langrangian view, fluid parcels are followed around as they move with the flow, experiencing chaotic or stochastic motion. This book examines both pictures, presenting a number of theoretical and experimental lectures on various aspects of transport and mixing of active and passive particles in geophysical flows.

This book presents important recent applied mathematics research on environmental problems and impacts due to climate change. Although there are inherent difficulties in addressing phenomena that are part of such a complex system, exploration of the subject using mathematical modelling is especially suited to tackling poorly understood issues in the field. It is in this spirit that the book was conceived. It is an outcome of the International INDAM Workshop "Mathematical Approach to Climate Change Impacts - MAC2I", held in Rome in March 2017. The workshop comprised four sessions, on Ecosystems, Hydrology, Glaciology, and Monitoring. The book includes peer-reviewed contributions on research issues discussed during each of these sessions or generated by collaborations among the specialists involved. Accurate parameter determination techniques are explained and innovative mathematical modelling approaches, presented. The book also provides useful material and mathematical problem-solving tools for doctoral programs dealing with the complexities of climate change.

This volume provides an overview of the fluid aspects of the climate system, focusing on basic aspects as well as recent research developments. It will bring together contributions from diverse fields of the physical, mathematical and engineering sciences. The volume will be useful to doctorate students, postdocs and researchers working on different aspects of atmospheric, oceanic and environmental fluid dynamics. It will also be of interest to researchers interested in quantitatively understanding how fluid dynamics can be applied to the climate system, and to climate scientists willing to gain a deeper insight into the fluid mechanics underlying climate processes.