Climate, Earth Processes and Earth History

ISBN-13: 9783642762703 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 281 str.

Richard J. Huggett

Opis

Today, climate-related processes and problems are referred to as Global Change by nearly everyone including scientists, politicians, and economists; citizens worldwide are anxious about the often ob served disorientation of our environment under the influence of man. Better information on the Earth's natural systems and their possible alterations is necessary. The topic itself is so wide that sound scien tific descriptions of it as a whole are rare. For the non-specialist infor mation from relevant fields is not easy to obtain; and often, the pro gnostic models presented are contradictory and even for specialists difficult to evaluate. Therefore, this book on Climate, Earth Processes and Earth History by Richard Huggett fills an important gap. It discusses the great, climate-related areas of the Earth's environment. The atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the sediments as products of weathering and geomorphic processes, the relief as landforms and soils, and the biosphere are thoroughly treated as the prominent sub systems which are greatly affected by climate. These subsystems not only control the visual and internal aspects of our landscapes, but they are themselves especially influenced by climatic changes which can be due to either changes in the natural system or anthropogenic changes. Thus, our landscapes will be subject to significant altera tions, if climatic variations exceed certain thresholds. The plan for the present book by Richard Huggett was originally discussed in regard to the Springer Series on Physical Environment."

Spis treści

1 Introduction.- 1.1 From Thermometers to Satellites.- 1.2 The World Climate System.- 1.3 Climatic Change.- 1.4 Scales of Systems.- 2 Air.- 2.1 Solar Forcing.- 2.1.1 Cycles of Solar Activity.- 2.1.2 Solar Signals in the Atmosphere.- 2.1.3 Mechanisms of Short-Term Solar Forcing.- 2.1.4 Longer-Term Variations in Solar Activity.- 2.2 Short-Term Gravitational Forcing.- 2.2.1 Lunar Signals.- 2.2.2 Short-Term Orbital Forcing.- 2.2.3 Short-Term Changes in the Earth’s Spin Rate.- 2.3 Medium-Term Gravitational Forcing.- 2.3.1 Ellipticity, Precession, and Obliquity.- 2.3.2 Problems with the Croll-Milankovitch Theory.- 2.4 Internal Dynamics of the Climate System.- 2.4.1 Carbon Dioxide.- 2.4.2 Methane and Dust.- 2.5 Geophysical Forcing.- 2.5.1 Volcanoes.- 2.5.2 Vapour Plumes and Meteoritic Dust.- 2.5.3 Relief.- 2.5.4 The Arrangement of Land and Sea.- 2.5.5 Geothermal Energy.- 2.5.6 True Polar Wander.- 2.5.7 The Earth’s Rotation Rate.- 2.5.8 Large Changes of Obliquity.- 3 Ice and Water.- 3.1 Terrestrial Systems and the Water Cycle.- 3.1.1 Descriptive Approaches.- 3.1.2 Energetic Approaches.- 3.1.3 Hydrological Models.- 3.2 Short-Term Changes in the Hydrosphere.- 3.2.1 Droughts, Floods, and the Lunar Cycle.- 3.2.2 Volcanoes and the Cryosphere.- 3.3 Medium-Term Changes in the Hydrosphere.- 3.3.1 Monsoons.- 3.3.2 Soil Moisture.- 3.3.3 Lakes.- 3.3.4 Glacio-Eustatic Changes.- 3.4 Long-Term Changes in the Hydrosphere.- 3.4.1 Ancient Water Budgets.- 3.4.2 Ice Ages Through Earth History.- 4 Sediments.- 4.1 Weathering.- 4.1.1 Weathering and Climate.- 4.1.2 Weathering and Leaching Regimes.- 4.2 Denudation and Deposition.- 4.2.1 Mechanical Denudation.- 4.2.2 Chemical Denudation.- 4.2.3 Slope Processes.- 4.2.4 Regional and Global Patterns of Denudation.- 4.3 Short-Term Forcing of Denudation-Deposition Systems.- 4.3.1 Solar Signals in Sediments.- 4.3.2 Lunar Signals in Sediments.- 4.4 Medium-Term Forcing of Denudation-Deposition Systems.- 4.4.1 Terrestrial Deposits.- 4.4.2 Marine Deposits.- 4.4.3 Lake and Evaporite Deposits.- 4.5 Long-Term Changes in Sediments.- 4.5.1 Palaeoclimatic Significance of Palaeosols.- 4.5.2 Glacial Deposits in the Tropics.- 5 Landforms and Soils.- 5.1 Soils and Climate.- 5.1.1 The Climatic Factor in Soil Formation.- 5.1.2 Soil Types and Climate.- 5.1.3 Soil Processes and Climate.- 5.2 Landscape Morphometry and Climate.- 5.2.1 Morphoclimatic Regions.- 5.2.2 Morphometry and Climate.- 5.2.3 The Origin of Asymmetrical Valleys.- 5.3 Landforms and Soils During the Pleistogene Period.- 5.3.1 Soil-Landscape Change and Glacial-Interglacial Cycles.- 5.3.2 Soil Landscapes and Climatic Change During the Holocene Epoch.- 5.3.3 Modelling the Response of Hillslope Form to Climatic Change.- 5.4 Pre-Pleistogene Soil-Landscape History.- 6 Animals and Plants.- 6.1 Climatic Influences on Life.- 6.1.1 Plants.- 6.1.2 Animals.- 6.2 Biogeographical Regularities.- 6.2.1 Ecogeographical Rules.- 6.2.2 Climatic Interpretations of Ecogeographical Rules.- 6.2.3 Modern Studies of Bergmann’s Rule.- 6.3 Patterns of Species Richness and Climate.- 6.3.1 The Species-Energy Theory.- 6.3.2 Species Richness in North America.- 6.4 Short-Term Climatic Change and Organisms.- 6.4.1 Animals, Plants, and Solar Cycles.- 6.4.2 Animals, Plants, Volcanoes, and Meteorites.- 6.5 Medium-Term Climatic Change and Organisms.- 6.5.1 Bergmann’s Rule and Holocene Faunas.- 6.5.2 Pleistocene Extinctions and Extirpations.- 7 Biomes and Zonobiomes.- 7.1 The Coming of Ecology.- 7.2 Communities and Climate.- 7.2.1 Life Zones.- 7.2.2 Vegetation and Temperature.- 7.2.3 Communities as Dynamic Continua.- 7.2.4 Plant Physiognomy and Climate: a Predictive Model.- 7.2.5 Plant Productivity and Climate.- 7.2.6 Plants and the Biosphere: Model Interactions.- 7.3 Medium-Term Climatic Swings and Plant Communities.- 7.3.1 The Response of Vegetation to Deglaciation.- 7.3.2 The Response of Vegetation to Glacial-Interglacial Cycles.- 7.4 Long-Term Climatic Change and Biotic Communities.- 7.4.1 Biotic and Climatic Changes in the Cretaceous and Palaeogene Periods.- 7.4.2 Mass Extinctions and Climate.- 8 Synthesis.- 8.1 Relations in the Biosphere: a General Model.- 8.2 The Problem of Scale.- 8.3 The Origin of Cyclicity.- References.