Introduces the methods of synoptic climatology (the spatial analysis of climates) and shows its vital importance in the understanding of environmental systems. Constructed around five environmental scenarios: tropospheric ozone concentration, surface wind flows, regional hydrology, local hydrology and acid rain. Applies five sets of analytical methods for each scenario: correlation-based map classification, subjective map interpretation, subjective circulation indices, eigenvector-based map classification and air-mass-based synoptic climatologies. This is a richly illustrated text which uses...

Scientists and policymakers have realized that localities are central to addressing the causes and consequences of global environmental change. The goal of the Human-Environment Regional Observatory project (HERO) was to develop the infrastructure necessary to monitor and understand the local dimensions of global change. This book presents the philosophy behind HERO, the methods used to put that philosophy into action, its results, and the lessons learned from the project. HERO used three strategies: it developed research protocols and data standards for collecting data; it built a web-based...

Presents the methodology of the Human-Environment Regional Observatory project (HERO), which developed infrastructure for monitoring and understanding local dimensions of global change.