To understand the global warming mechanism, global mapping of primary production was carried out under the GCMAPS program. The program was concerned with marine and terrestrial environmental changes, which affect carbon cycle on the regional and global scales. On the regional scale, warm phase of ENSO (El Niño / Southern Oscillation) has been shown to affect economic activities in many countries. The keyword for understanding mechanism of global warming is ‘primary productivity’. The earth observation satellites (EOS) like the ADEOS of Japan, and the SeaWiFS, Sea Star and Terra of the U.S.A. provided much required data for modeling and verification of primary production estimates on both land and ocean. The knowledge gained during the GCMAPS program has been documented in this book. Interpretation of the data suggests that global warming, which causes temperature and sea level rise, and changes in climate and ecosystems, is likely to have the largest influence on mankind. The first half of this book discuss changes in marine environments. Physical and chemical oceanographic properties of the equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans are presented. Changes in partial pressure of carbon dioxide, flux and composition of settling particles and biological communities in the surface ocean have also been discussed. In addition to this, over hundred years of environmental records based upon coral skeletons are presented. Estimations of primary production and its utilization in validating satellite imagery data were conducted in the western North Pacific. Primary productivity estimates based upon the validated satellite imagery are presented on the global scale. Climate change modeling of primary production in global oceans is also presented. The latter half of this book deals with changes in terrestrial environments. Primary productivity estimates for different types of ecosystems (e.g., forest, grassland) are presented together with soil carbon dynamics. Also, biomass and productivity estimation and environmental monitoring based upon remote sensing techniques are presented with a model analysis of the relationship between climate perturbations and carbon budget anomalies in global terrestrial ecosystems. This book elucidates integrated aspects of the global carbon cycle involving marine and terrestrial environments. Discusses a current understanding of the biogeochemical processes on land and ocean Provides global mapping of primary production based on satellite imagery data and modelling Presents the latest interpretations of relationships between carbon cycle and climatic change

The international community is not taking the action necessary to avert dangerous increases in greenhouse gases. Facing a potentially bleak future, the question that confronts humanity is whether the best of bad alternatives may be to counter global warming through human-engineered climate interventions. In this book, eleven prominent authorities on climate change consider the legal, policy and philosophical issues presented by geoengineering. The book asks: when, if ever, are decisions to embark on potentially risky climate modification projects justified? If such decisions can be justified, in a world without a central governing authority, who should authorize such projects and by what moral and legal right? If states or private actors undertake geoengineering ventures absent the blessing of the international community, what recourse do the rest of us have?

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 177. This monograph is the first to survey progress in realistic simulation in a strongly eddying regime made possible by recent increases in computational capability. Its contributors comprise the leading researchers in this important and constantly evolving field. Divided into three parts Oceanographic Processes and Regimes: Fundamental Questions Ocean Dynamics and State: From Regional to Global Scale, and Modeling at the Mesoscale: State of the Art and Future Directions The volume details important advances in physical oceanography based on eddy resolving ocean modeling. It captures the state of the art and discusses issues that ocean modelers must consider in order to effectively contribute to advancing current knowledge, from subtleties of the underlying fluid dynamical equations to meaningful comparison with oceanographic observations and leading-edge model development. It summarizes many of the important results which have emerged from ocean modeling in an eddying regime, for those interested broadly in the physical science. More technical topics are intended to address the concerns of those actively working in the field.

Approx.474 pages Approx.474 pages

Fossil biomineralizarion in a geologic framework for advanced students and researchers in paleontology, Earth history, evolution, sedimentology, geochemistry, and materials science.

An interdisciplinary study of the Kuroshio nutrient stream The surface water of the Kuroshio, a western boundary current in the North Pacific Ocean, is nutrient-depleted and has relatively low primary productivity, yet abundant fish populations are supported in the region. This is called the “Kuroshio Paradox”. Kuroshio Current: Physical, Biogeochemical and Ecosystem Dynamics presents research from a multidisciplinary team that conducted observational and modeling studies to investigate this contradiction. This timely and important contribution to the ocean sciences literature provides a comprehensive analysis of the Kuroshio. Volume highlights include: New insights into the role of the Kuroshio as a nutrient stream The first interdisciplinary examination of the Kuroshio Paradox Reflections on the influence of the Kuroshio on Japanese culture Research results on both the lower and higher trophic levels in the Kuroshio ecosystem Comparisons of nutrient dynamics in the Kuroshio and Gulf Stream Predictions of ecosystem responses to future climate variability

Our desire to understand the global carbon cycle and its link to the climate system represents a huge challenge. These overarching questions have driven a great deal of scientific endeavour in recent years: What are the basic oceanic mechanisms which control the oceanic carbon reservoirs and the partitioning of carbon between ocean and atmosphere? How do these mechanisms depend on the state of the climate system and how does the carbon cycle feed back on climate? What is the current rate at which fossil fuel carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans and how might this change in the future? To begin to answer these questions we must first understand the distribution of carbon in the ocean, its partitioning between different ocean reservoirs (the "solubility" and "biological" pumps of carbon), the mechanisms controlling these reservoirs, and the relationship of the significant physical and biological processes to the physical environment. The recent surveys from the JGOFS and WOCE (Joint Global Ocean Flux Study and World Ocean Circulation Ex periment) programs have given us a first truly global survey of the physical and biogeochemical properties of the ocean. These new, high quality data provide the opportunity to better quantify the present oceans reservoirs of carbon and the changes due to fossil fuel burning. In addition, diverse process studies and time-series observations have clearly revealed the complexity of interactions between nutrient cycles, ecosystems, the carbon-cycle and the physical envi ronment.