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Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding.

The boreal forest is the northern-most woodland biome, whose natural history is rooted in the influence of low temperature and high-latitude. Alaska's boreal forest is now warming as rapidly as the rest of Earth, providing an unprecedented look at how this cold-adapted, fire-prone forest adjusts to change. This volume synthesizes current understanding of the ecology of Alaska's boreal forests and describes their unique features in the context of circumpolar and global patterns. It tells how fire and climate contributed to the biome's current dynamics. As climate warms and permafrost (permanently frozen ground) thaws, the boreal forest may be on the cusp of a major change in state. The editors have gathered a remarkable set of contributors to discuss this swift environmental and biotic transformation. Their chapters cover the properties of the forest, the changes it is undergoing, and the challenges these alterations present to boreal forest managers. In the first section, the reader can absorb the geographic and historical context for understanding the boreal forest. The book then delves into the dynamics of plant and animal communities inhabiting this forest, and the biogeochemical processes that link these organisms. In the last section the authors explore landscape phenomena that operate at larger temporal and spatial scales and integrates the processes described in earlier sections. Much of the research on which this book is based results from the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Here is a synthesis of the substantial literature on Alaska's boreal forest that should be accessible to professional ecologists, students, and the interested public.

This revealing book synthesizes research from many fields to offer the first complete history of the roles played by weather and climate in American life from colonial times to the present. Author William B. Meyer characterizes weather events as neutral phenomena that are inherently neither hazards nor resources, but can become either depending on the activities with which they interact. Meyer documents the ways in which different kinds of weather throughout history have represented hazards and resources not only for such exposed outdoor pursuits as agriculture, warfare, transportation, construction, and recreation, but for other realms of life ranging from manufacturing to migration to human health. He points out that while the weather and climate by themselves have never determined the course of human events, their significance as been continuously altered for better and for worse by the evolution of American life.

Stochastic Subsurface Hydrogeology is the study of subsurface, geological heterogeneity, and its effects on flow and transport process, using probabilistic and geostatistical concepts. This book presents a rational, systematic approach for analyzing and modeling subsurface heterogeneity, and for modeling flow and transport in the subsurface, and for prediction and decision-making under uncertainty. The book covers the fundamentals and practical aspects of geostatistics and stochastic hydrogeology, coupling theoretical and practical aspects, with examples, case studies and guidelines for applications, and provides a summary and review of the major developments in these areas.

With both the growing importance of integrating studies of air-sea interaction and the interest in the general problem of global warming, the appearance of the second edition of this popular text is especially welcome. Thoroughly updated and revised, the authors have retained the accessible, comprehensive expository style that distinguished the earlier edition. Topics include the state of matter near the interface, radiation, surface wind waves, turbulent transfer near the interface, the planetary boundary layer, atmospherically-forced perturbations in the oceans, and large-scale forcing by sea surface buoyancy fluxes. This book will be welcomed by students and professionals in meteorology, physical oceanography, physics and ocean engineering.

A complete revision of Goody's classic 1964 work, this volume offers a systematic discussion of atmospheric radiation processes that today are at the center of worldwide study and concern. It deals with the ways in which incident solar radiation is transformed into scattered and thermal radiation, and the thermodynamic consequences for the Earth's gaseous envelope, identifying aspects of the interaction between radiation and atmospheric motions as the central theme for atmospheric radiation studies. As a complete treatment of physical and mathematical foundations, the text assumes no prior knowledge of atmospheric physics. The theoretical discussion is systematic, and can therefore be applied with minor extension to any planetary atmosphere.

This book, authored by a well-known researcher and expositor in meteorology, focuses on the direct link between molecular dynamics, turbulence theory, fluid mechanics and non equilibrium statistical mechanics, it is relevant to the fields of applied mathematics, physics and atmospheric sciences, and focuses on fluid flow and turbulence, as well as on temperature, radiative transfer and chemistry. With extensive references and glossary, this is an ideal text for graduates and researchers in meteorology, applied mathematics and physical chemistry.

Biodiversity in Drylands, the first internationally based synthesis volume in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Series, unifies the concepts of species and landscape diversity with respect to deserts. Within this framework, the book treats several emerging themes, among them: · how animal biodiversity can be supported in deserts · diversity's relation to habitat structure, environmental variability, and species interactions · the relation between spatial scale and diversity · how to use a landscape simulation model to understand diversity · microbial contributions to biodiversity in deserts · species diversity and ecosystem processes · resource partitioning and biodiversity in fractal environments · effects of grazing on biodiversity · reconciliation ecology and the future of conservation management In the face of global change, integration is crucial for dealing with the problem of sustaining biodiversity. This book promises to be a vital resource for students, researchers, and managers interested in integrative species, resource, and landscape diversities.

Biogeochemistry of Estuaries offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to understanding biogeochemical cycling in estuaries. Designed as a text for intermediate to advanced students, this book utilizes numerous illustrations and an extensive literature base to impart the current state-of-the-art knowledge in this field. While many of the existing books in estuarine science are comprised of edited volumes, typically focused on highly specific topics in estuaries,Biogeochemistry of Estuaries provides, for the first time, a unique foundation in the areas of geomorphology, geochemistry, biochemistry, aqueous chemistry, and ecology, while making strong linkages (trhoughout the text) to ecosystem-based processes in estuarine sciences. Estuaries, located at the interface between land and the coastal ocean are dynamic, highly productive systems that, in many cases, have been historically associated with development of many of the great centers of early human civilization. Consequentially, these systems have and continue to be highly impacted by anthropogenic inputs. This timely book takes the foundational basis of elemental cycling in estuarine and applies it to estuarine management issues. Biogeochemistry of Estuaries will be welcomed by estuarine/marine scientists, ecologists, biogeochemists, and environmentalists around the world.

With a complex assemblage of largely intact ecosystems that support the earth’s greatest diversity of life, the Amazon basin is a focal point of international scientific interest. And, as development and colonization schemes transform the landscape in increasing measure, scientists from around the world are directing attention to questions of regional and global significance. Some of these qustions are: What are the fluxes of greenhouse gases across the atmospheric interface of ecosystems? How mush carbon is stored in the biomass and soils of the basin? How are elements from the land transferred to the basin’s surface waters? What is the sum of elements transferred from land to ocean, and what is its marine “fate’? This book of original chapters by experts in chemical and biological oceanography, tropical agronomy and biology, and the atmospheric sciences will address these and other important questions, with the aim of synthesizing the current knowledge of biochemical processes operating within and between the various ecosystems in the Amazon basin.

Coastal zones are becoming increasingly topical (and politically sensitive) as they face relentless pressures from urban expansion, recreational development and sea level rise due to climate change. This timely book provides a comprehensive introduction to the formation, dynamics, maintenance and perpetuation of coastal sand dune systems. It describes the interactions between living organisms and the physical processes of geomorphology, with particular emphasis on conservation and management issues due to this habitat's increasingly endangered status. A global range of examples enhance the book's international appeal, which also includes coverage of the latest methods/techniques and experimental approaches with suggestions for student-based field studies and projects. This accessible text is suitable for both senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in coastal zone management, marine biology, plant ecology, restoration ecology and conservation biology, as well as the many professional ecologists and conservation biologists requiring a concise but authoritative overview of the topic. The book will also be of relevance and use to coastal managers, planners and naturalists.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders owed much of their unexpected popularity in the 2016 primaries to their respective stances on trade and immigration policy. Political elites and policy experts were bewildered by combative talk of building a wall and the ubiquity of anti-TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) sloganeering in what many saw as a bizarre election cycle. They have scrambled to explain both Trump's victory and the new political fault lines that have emerged in both major political parties, largely around trade and immigration. In struggling industrial towns and cities, the rise of Trump and Sanders was less of a surprise. These places have long weathered globalization's storm. Many feel left behind and sold short. They are anxious, and they're demanding answers. Galesburg, Illinois, is one such city.

Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

This work focuses on integrating land-use location science with the technology of geographic information systems (GIS). The text describes the basic principles of location decision and the means for applying them in order to improve the real estate decision.

Catastrophic risks are much greater than is commonly appreciated. Collision with an asteroid, runaway global warming, voraciously replicating nanomachines, a pandemic of gene-spliced smallpox launched by bioterrorists, and a world-ending accident in a high-energy particle accelerator, are among the possible extinction events that are sufficiently likely to warrant careful study. How should we respond to events that, for a variety of psychological and cultural reasons, we find it hard to wrap our minds around? Posner argues that realism about science and scientists, innovative applications of cost-benefit analysis, a scientifically literate legal profession, unprecedented international cooperation, and a pragmatic attitude toward civil liberties are among the keys to coping effectively with the catastrophic risks.

In Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities, renowned geologist Tony Hallam takes us on a tour of the Earth’s history, and of the cataclysmic events, as well as the more gradual extinctions, that have punctuated life on Earth throughout the past 500 million years. While comparable books in this field of study tend to promote only one likely cause of mass extinctions, such as extraterrestrial impact, volcanism, and or climatic cooling, Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities breaks new ground, as the first book to attempt an objective coverage of all likely causes, including sea-level and climatic changes, oxygen deficiency in the oceans, volcanic activity, and extraterrestrial impact. Hallam focuses on the so-called ‘big five’ mass extinctions, at the end of the Ordovician, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous periods, and the later Devonian, and he also includes less well-known examples where relevant. He devotes attention especially to the attempts by geologists to distinguish true catastrophes from more gradual extinction events, and he concludes with a discussion of the evolutionary significance of mass extinctions, and on the influence of Homo sapiens in causing extinctions within the last few thousand years, both on land and in the seas.

This book is the first to detail the chemical changes that occur in deforming materials subjected to unequal compressions. While thermodynamics provides, at the macroscopic level, an excellent means of understanding and predicting the behavior of materials in equilibrium and non-equilibrium states, much less is understood about nonhydrostatic stress and interdiffusion at the chemical level. Little is known, for example, about the chemistry of a state resulting from a cylinder of deforming material being more strongly compressed along its length than radially, a state of non-equilibrium that remains no matter how ideal the cylinder’s condition in other respects. M. Brian Bayly here provides the outline of a comprehensive approach to gaining a simplified and unified understanding of such phenomena. The author’s perspective differs from those commonly found in the technical literature in that he emphasizes two little-used equations that allow for a description and clarification of viscous deformation at the chemical level. Written at a level that will be accessible to many non-specialists, this book requires only a fundamental understanding of elementary mathematics, the nonhydrostatic stress state, and chemical potential. Geochemists, petrologists, structural geologists, and materials scientists will find Chemical Change in Deforming Materials interesting and useful.

This book, based on research carried out at the Academia Sinica over the past 30 years, explains the basic difference between the variable charge soils of tropical and subtropical regions, and the constant charge soils of temperate regions. It will focus on the chemical properties of the variable charge soils--properties which have important bearing on soil management practices, including maximizing soil productivity and combating soil pollution.

Cirrus clouds are high, thin, tropospheric clouds composed predominately of ice. In the last ten years, considerable work has shown that cirrus is widespread—more common than previously believed--and has a significant impact on climate and global change. As the next generation weather satellites are being designed, the impact of cirrus on remote sensing and the global energy budget must be recognized and accommodated. This book, the first to be devoted entirely to cirrus clouds, captures the state of knowledge of cirrus and serves as a practical handbook as well. Each chapter is based on an invited review talk presented at Cirrus, a meeting hosted by the Optical Society of America and co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. All aspects of cirrus clouds are covered, an approach that reaches into diverse fields. Topics include: the definition of cirrus, cirrus climatologies, nucleation, evolution and dissipation, mixed-phase thermodynamics, crystallinity, orientation mechanisms, dynamics, scattering, radiative transfer, in situ sampling, processes that produce or influence cirrus (and vice versa), contrails, and the influence of cirrus on climate.