This excellent book covers techniques used for extrapolating measurements of trace gas fluxes and factors regulating the production, consumption and exchange of trace gases in terrestrial and aquatic environments.It provides a comprehensive summary of all aspects of scaling, from flux measurement techniques, geographic data, modelling, use of tracers and isotopes, inverse modelling and satellite-borne atmospheric observations. An interesting feature of the book is the fact that both fluxes from terrestrial and aquatic (marine) sources are discussed, along with the uncertainties in estimates of trace gas fluxes at different scales, including point, field, landscape, regional and global scale.As well as reviewing the state of the art in the field of scaling of fluxes of greenhouse gases, ozone and aerosol and their precursors, and acidifying compounds, the emphasis of this volume is on identification of gaps in knowledge, finding solutions, and determination of future research directions.
This book assesses the current greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring capabilities of Europe, identifies and quantifies the uncertainties involved, and outlines the direction to a continental scale GHG monitoring network. The book uniquely addresses both the methodology of carbon cycle science and the science itself, providing a synthesis of carbon cycle science. The methods included provide the first comprehensive coverage of a full GHG accounting and monitoring system.
This report is a review of studies in six countriers commissioned under UNEP's "Capacity Building for Integrating Environmental Considerations into Development Planning and Decision-making" programme. These projects are the first of their kind as they were entirely conceived, designed, and conducted by teams of national experts in their own country."--Forward (page vii).
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, no environmental issue is of such truly global magnitude as the issue of climate change. The poorer, developing countries are the least equipped to adapt to the potential effects of climate change, although most of them have played an insignificant role in causing it. African countries are amongst the poorest of the developing countries. This book presents the issues of most relevance to Africa, such as past and present climate, desertification, biomass burning and its implications for atmospheric chemistry and climate, energy generation, sea-level rise, ENSO-induced drought and flood, adaptation, disaster risk reduction, the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol (especially the Clean Development Mechanism), capacity-building, and sustainable development. It provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review of these and many other issues, with chapters by the leading experts from a range of disciplines. Climate Change and Africa will prove to be an invaluable reference for all researchers and policy makers with an interest in climate change and Africa.
This book focuses on how climate affects or affected the biosphere and vice versa both in the present and in the past. The chapters describe how ecosystems from the Antarctic and Arctic, and from other latitudes, respond to global climate change. The papers highlight plant responses to atmospheric CO2 increase, to global warming and to increased ultraviolet-B radiation as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion.
Nitrous oxide gas is a long-lived relatively active greenhouse gas (GHG) with an atmospheric lifetime of approximately 120 years, and heat trapping effects about 310 times more powerful than carbon dioxide per molecule basis. It contributes about 6% of observed global warming. Nitrous oxide is not only a potent GHG, but it also plays a significant role in the depletion of stratospheric ozone. This book describes the anthropogenic sources of N2O with major emphasis on agricultural activities. It summarizes an overview of global cycling of N and the role of nitrous oxide on global warming and ozone depletion, and then focus on major source, soil borne nitrous oxide emissions. The spatial-temporal variation of soil nitrous oxide fluxes and underlying biogeochemical processes are described, as well as approaches to quantify fluxes of N2O from soils. Mitigation strategies to reduce the emissions, especially from agricultural soils, and fertilizer nitrogen sources are described in detail in the latter part of the book.
A state-of-the-art overview of the influence of terrestrial vegetation and soils within the Earth system. The text deals especially with interactions between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere via the hydrological cycle and their interlinkage with anthropogenic activities. Measurements gathered in integrated field experiments in the Sahel, the Amazon, North America and South-east Asia confirm the importance of these interactions. Observations are complemented by modelling studies, including regional models that simulate flows and transport in river catchments, coupled land-cover and regional climate systems, and Earth-system and global circulation models. Water, nutrient and sediment fluxes in river basins are also discussed and are shown to be highly impacted and regulated by humans through land use, pollution and river engineering. Finally, the book discusses environmental vulnerability and methodologies for assessing the risks associated with regional and global climatic and environmental variability and change. The results reported in this book are based on the research work of many individual scientists and teams around the world associated with the objectives of the IGBP-BAHC and WCRP-GEWEX international research programmes.
Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs discusses the need for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement a new method for estimating the amount of ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and other pollutants emitted from livestock and poultry farms, and for determining how these emissions are dispersed in the atmosphere. The committee calls for the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish a joint council to coordinate and oversee short - and long-term research to estimate emissions from animal feeding operations accurately and to develop mitigation strategies. Their recommendation was for the joint council to focus its efforts first on those pollutants that pose the greatest risk to the environment and public health.
A comprehensive overview of environmetric research and its applications... Environmetrics covers the development and application of quantitative methods in the environmental sciences. It provides essential tools for understanding, predicting, and controlling the impacts of agents, both man-made and natural, which affect the environment. Basic and applied research in this area covers a broad range of topics. Primary among these are the quantitative sciences, such as statistics, probability and applied mathematics, chemometrics, and econometrics. Applications are also important, for example in, ecology and environmental biology, public health, atmospheric science, geology, engineering, risk management, and regulatory/governmental policy amongst others. * Divided into 12 sections, the Encyclopedia brings together over 600 detailed articles which have been carefully selected and reviewed through the collaborative efforts of the Editors-in-Chief and the appropriate Section Editor * Presented in alphabetical order all the articles will include an explanatory introduction, extensive cross-referencing and an up-to-date bibliography providing literature references for further reading. Presenting state of the art information in a readable, highly accessible style, the scope and coverage provided by the Encyclopedia of Environmetrics will ensure its place as the landmark reference for the many scientists, educators, and decision-makers working across this multidisciplinary field. An essential reference tool for university libraries, research laboratories, government institutions and consultancies concerned with the environmental sciences, the Encyclopedia of Environmetrics brings together for the first time, comprehensive coverage of the full range of topics, techniques and applications covered by this multidisciplinary field. There is currently no central reference source which addresses the needs of this multidisciplinary community. This new Encyclopedia will fill this gap by providing a comprehensive source of relevant fundamental concepts in environmetric research, development and applications for statisticians, mathematicians, economists, environmentalists, ecologist, government officials and policy makers.
Ecology at the ecosystem level has both necessitated and benefited from new methods and technologies as well as those adapted from other disciplines. With the ascendancy of ecosystem science and management, the need has arisen for a comprehensive treatment of techniques used in this rapidly-growing field. Methods in Ecosystem Science answers that need by synthesizing the advantages, disadvantages and tradeoffs associated with the most commonly used techniques in both aquatic and terrestrial research. The book is divided into sections addressing carbon and energy dynamics, nutrient and water dynamics, manipulative ecosystem experiements and tools to synthesize our understanding of ecosystems. Detailed information about various methods will help researchers choose the most appropriate methods for their particular studies. Prominent scientists discuss how tools from a variety of disciplines can be used in ecosystem science at different scales.
