Carbon Cycling In The Glacial Ocean Constraints On The Ocean S Role In Global Change

A comprehensive progress report on the multi-disciplinary field of ocean and climate change research is given. It compiles introductory background papers and leading scientific results on the ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle with emphasis on the ocean's carbon inventory and the various components involved. The relationship between plankton productivity, carbon fixation, oceanic PCO2 and climate change is investigated from the viewpoint of long-term climatic change during the late Quaternary cycles of ice ages and warm ages. The various approaches range from micropaleontology over organic and trace element geochemistry to molecular isotope geochemistry.

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.

The northern North Atlantic is one of the regions most sensitive to past and present global changes. This book integrates the results of an interdisciplinary project studying the properties of the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas and the processes of pelagic and benthic particle formation, particle transport, and deposition in the deep-sea sediments. Ice-related and biogeochemical processes have been investigated to decipher the spatial and temporal variability of the production and fate of organic carbon in this region. Isotopic stratigraphy, microfossil assemblages and paleotemperatures are combined to reconstruct paleoceanographic conditions and to model past climatic changes in the Late Quaternary. The Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas can now be considered one of the best studied subbasins of the world`s oceans.

Water is an extremely important factor in global environmental change. Water influences the processes causing change. The human and economic consequences of changes in the water system can be very significant. The aim of this NATO Advanced Study Institute was to present a state-of-the-art assessment of the role of water in global change, ranging from a consideration of atmospheric processes to the social and political impacts of changes in water resources. Many initiatives have recently been developed, such as international conferences and research programmes in particular themes, but there was still a need for information from these diverse activities to be brought together. One of the aims of the ASI was to encourage cross-fertilization between the various disciplines looking at water in the global system. This book contains the expanded written versions of the lectures presented during the AS! held in Italy in May/June 1994. It falls into two basic parts. The first twelve chapters cover the role of water in the climate system and climate modelling. Various areas of the water balance including global budgets, the effect of each element of the water balance on regional and global climates, and procedures used to model hydrological processes at all scales are discussed. Precipitation, ice, lake, groundwater, land surface and atmospheric considerations are included together with hydrological process linkage to climate models. Ocean effects were not covered as they were considered to be outside the scope of this particular AS!.

Quaternary studies provide the essential context for evaluation of what is happening with the earth's climate today, and to clarify our vulnerability to hazardous natural processes. This book covers scientific aspects of past and present climatic changes of the quaternary period focused on the Indian subcontinent via response of modern environmental conditions on climate proxies, reconstruction of paleoclimate, paleomonsoon, glacial geology, climate variabilities using dendrochronology, cave deposits including quaternary tectonics and climate change over the Himalayan region. It consists of data generated from different landforms including lakes, caves, rivers, swamps, pits, and trenches using different proxies. Aimed at researchers, graduate students, professionals in geology, geography and environmental sciences, micropaleontology, and Quaternary climate change, this book: Studies Quaternary climate using various proxies in varied environments on the Indian sub-continent Covers pertinent historical and environmental archives to understand the current climate scenario Discusses the impact of climate change on biotic and abiotic components Includes thorough review of paleoclimate change studies Devotes significant space to glacial geology and all glacial climate proxies

Globally, forest vegetation and soils are both major stores of terrestrial organic carbon, and major contributors to the annual cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and the biosphere. Forests are also a renewable resource, vital to the everyday existence of millions of people, since they provide food, shelter, fuel, raw materials and many other benefits. The combined effects of an expanding global population and increasing consumption of resources, however, may be seriously endangering both the extent and future sustainability of the world's forests. About thirty chapters cover four main themes: the role of forests in the global carbon cycle; effects of past, present and future changes in forest land use; the role of forest management, products and biomass on carbon cycling, and socio-economic impacts.