Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Earth Sciences - Meteorology & Climatology

This book is a collection of the lectures, held at the International Summer School ISSAOS-2000 in L'Aquila (Italy), given by invited lecturers coming from both Europe and the USA. The goal of the book is to provide a broad panorama of spaceborne remote sensing techniques, at both microwave and visible-infrared bands and by both active and passive sensors, for the retrieval of atmospheric and oceanic parameters. A significant emphasis is given to the physical modeling background, instrument potential and limitations, inversion methods and applications. Topics on international remote sensing...

Climate and Water: Transboundary Challenges in the Americas explores some of the ways that climate, hydrology, and water resource management converge at the borders between jurisdictions and countries in the western Hemisphere. This book is unique in focusing on case studies of climate-hydrology-water resource management in diverse contexts in South, Central, and North America. This book is singular in highlighting important problems arising from the very existence of boundaries drawn and defined by society. Addressing such problems takes on increasing urgency as the world...

Sahelian West Africa has recovered from the disastrous droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. People have learned to adapt to risk and uncertainty in fragile dryland environments. They, as well as global change scientists, are worried about the impact of climate change on these West African drylands. What do the experiences of the last thirty years say about the preparedness for higher temperatures, lower rainfall, and even more variability? Detailed studies on Dryland West Africa as a whole, and on Burkina Faso, Mali and Northern Ghana in particular show an advanced coping behaviour and...

Today, given the well-publicized impacts of events such as El Nino, there is an unequaled public awareness of how climate affects the quality of life and environment. Such awareness has created an increasing demand for accurate climatological information. This information is now available in one convenient, accessible source, the Encyclopedia of World Climatology. This comprehensive volume covers all the main subfields of climatology, supplies information on climates in major continental areas, and explains the intricacies of climatic processes. The level of presentation will meet the...

Since the Industrial Revolution the chemical composition of the atmosphere has changed at a rate unprecedented in recent history. Ozone depletion emerged as one of the most important environmental issues of the 20th century as evidence grew for substantial human influences on the atmospheric ozone abundances over much of the globe. The science of the ozone layer and its interactions with halogenated chemical compounds are the primary subjects of this book.

The volume provides a comprehensive view of the chemical, dynamical, and radiative processes that affect ozone and other...

Our planet exists within a space environment affected by constantly changing solar atmosphere producing cosmic particles and electromagnetic waves. This "space weather" profoundly influences the performance of our technology because we primarily use two means for transmitting information and energy; namely, electromagnetic waves and electricity. On an everyday basis, we have developed methods to cope with the normal conditions. However, the sun remains a fiery star whose 'angry' outbursts can potentially destroy spacecrafts, kill astronauts, melt electricity transformers, stop trains, and...

Concern exists over human-generated increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases and their potential consequences to society. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 finds that global temperatures have increased by 0.8C since 1850 and that climate warming is now 'unequivocal'. While the human imprint is becoming increasingly apparent, Earth's climate has shifted dramatically and frequently during the last few million years, alternating between ice ages, when vast glaciers covered Northern Europe and much of North America, and interglacials--warm periods much like today....

Frequent drought events, recently occurred in different Mediterranean regions, have highlighted a general inadequacy of the current strategies applied to mitigate negative impacts of such phenomenon on different water sectors. In particular, the lack of timely drought monitoring systems, the difficulty in transferring advanced methodologies for the assessment of drought risk to the institutions responsible for water resources management, as well as the complexity in defining simple and objective criteria to select and implement appropriate mitigation measures, represent the main limits to...