Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Physics - Geophysics

This book comprises an excursion through space weather, a scientific topic in rapid growth and with growing impact and implications for technological societies. The text is aimed at students and scientists working, or interested in, the field and provides a thorough introduction to the topic for those who wish to become acquainted with the basic solar physics at the origin of space weather.

Particularly intense lightning discharges can produce transient luminous events above thunderclouds, termed sprites, elves and jets. These short lived optical emissions in the mesosphere can reach from the tops of thunderclouds up to the ionosphere; they provide direct evidence of coupling from the lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere. Sprites are arguably the most dramatic recent discovery in solar-terrestrial physics. Shortly after the first ground based video recordings of sprites, observations on board the Space Shuttle detected sprites and elves occurring all around the world....

Natural hazards events such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions involve activation of coupled thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical processes in rocks. The 7th Euro-conference of Rock Physics and Geomechanics was held September 25 to 30, 2007, in Erice (Italy), to explore how rock physics experiments and models can facilitate understanding and constraint of natural hazards mechanisms, and, to foster cross-disciplinary collaborations.

The present book assembles unpublished contributions to the Erice conference. It presents new laboratory data, theoretical and numerical rock physics models...

This book brings together state of the art, peer reviewed, papers on shear physics at the meso-scale in earthquake and landslide mechanics and is authored by leading international scientists. The Identification of meso-scale phenomena occurring between microscopic and continuum length scales has been one of the most exciting developments in the last decade in understanding shear between material interfaces as well as particulate systems and is considered as the bridge between the two length scales for studying material response. This area or research has broad applications to the fields of...

Cartography and geographic information (GI) are remarkably appropriate for the requirements of early warning (EW) and crisis management (CM). The use of geospatial technology has increased tremendously in the last years. ICT has changed from just using maps created in advance, to new approaches, allowing individuals (decision-makers) to use cartography interactively, on the basis of individual user's requirements. The new generation of cartographic visualizations based on standardisation, formal modelling, use of sensors, semantics and ontology, allows for the better adaptation of...