Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases The Hungarian Perspective

Human induced global climate change is the biggest challenge humankind faces today. Increasing amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases play a crucial role in the evolution of the climate. Without the understanding of the contributing processes, feedbacks and interactions we cannot predict the future changes and develop effective mitigation strategies. To decrease the uncertainty of the global studies detailed regional studies are needed surveying the regional characteristics of the atmospheric greenhouse gas budget and the influencing factors. Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases: The Hungarian Perspective covers a coherent subset of the Hungarian climate change oriented research that is directly related to greenhouse gases. Topics discussed in the book range from the monitoring of the concentrations and fluxes of atmospheric greenhouse gases, through the modeling of atmosphere-biosphere interaction and greenhouse gas exchange processes, to the review of the anthropogenic contribution of Hungary to the greenhouse gas budget of the atmosphere. The studies call the attention to the regional properties which may modulate the European scale or global picture on the variation of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Soil Carbon in Sensitive European Ecosystems - From Science to Land Management is a comprehensive overview of the latest research in this field drawn together by a network of scientists from across Europe. Soil carbon assessments are crucial at present to our understanding of the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems and our ability to assess implications for the global carbon exchange and its consequences on the future climate. This book focuses primarily on ecosystems and their soil carbon stocks. The book identifies three key sensitive ecosystems within Europe: Mediterranean Forest and Agricultural Systems; Mountains; and Peatland. Contributors include those currently working for the European research programme, COST Action 639 BurnOut (www.cost639.net; 2006-2010). COST Action 639 emerged from a demand from policy makers in Europe for more detailed information on soil carbon dynamics. The cooperation between experts for reporting and experts for soil dynamics is the focus of the book. This book seeks to provide an up-to-date account on the state-of-the-art research within this topical field.

As is now generally accepted mankind’s burning of fossil fuels has resulted in the mass transfer of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, a modification of the delicately-balanced global carbon cycle, and a measurable change in world-wide temperatures and climate. Although not the most powerful greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO) drives climate 2 change due to the enormous volumes of this gas pumped into the atmosphere every day. Produced in almost equal parts by the transportation, industrial and energy-generating sectors, atmospheric CO concentrations have 2 increased by about 50% over the last 300 years, and according to some sources are predicted to increase by up to 200% over pre-industrial levels during the next 100 years. If we are to reverse this trend, in order to prevent significant environmental change in the future, action must be taken immediately. While reduced use of fossil fuels (through conservation, increased efficiency and expanded use of renewable energy sources) must be our ultimate goal, short to medium term solutions are needed which can make an impact today. Various types of CO storage techniques have been proposed to fill this 2 need, with the injection of this gas into deep geological reservoirs being one of the most promising. For example this approach has the potential to become a closed loop system, whereby underground energy resources are brought to surface, their energy extracted (via burning or hydrogen extraction), and the resulting by-products returned to the subsurface.

EU accession in 2004 has confirmed Hungary’s successful transformation from a centrally planned economy into a functioning market economy operating within the framework of a multi-party democracy. However, the country’s output per capita is still ...

Today, predicting the impact of human activities on the earth’s climate hinges on tracking interactions among phenomena of radically different dimensions, from the molecular to the planetary. Climate in Motion shows that this multiscalar, multicausal framework emerged well before computers and satellites. Extending the history of modern climate science back into the nineteenth century, Deborah R. Coen uncovers its roots in the politics of empire-building in central and eastern Europe. She argues that essential elements of the modern understanding of climate arose as a means of thinking across scales in a state—the multinational Habsburg Monarchy, a patchwork of medieval kingdoms and modern laws—where such thinking was a political imperative. Led by Julius Hann in Vienna, Habsburg scientists were the first to investigate precisely how local winds and storms might be related to the general circulation of the earth’s atmosphere as a whole. Linking Habsburg climatology to the political and artistic experiments of late imperial Austria, Coen grounds the seemingly esoteric science of the atmosphere in the everyday experiences of an earlier era of globalization. Climate in Motion presents the history of modern climate science as a history of “scaling”—that is, the embodied work of moving between different frameworks for measuring the world. In this way, it offers a critical historical perspective on the concepts of scale that structure thinking about the climate crisis today and the range of possibilities for responding to it.