Hot Spots In The Climate System

This book consists of the articles from the special issue of “‘Hot Spots’ in the Climate System” in the Journal of Oceanography, Vol. 71 No. 5, 2015, comprising 9 chapters that cover a wide spectrum of topics. This spinoff book is a collection of papers on the scientific outcomes of a nationwide 5-year project funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and known internationally as the “Hot-Spot Project.” The academic achievement of the project has gained international recognition, making substantial contribution to unveiling the climatic role of warm western boundary ocean currents, including the Kuroshio, and associated oceanic fronts characterized by sharp temperature gradients and active meso-scale oceanic eddies. Specifically, those warm currents may be called “hot spots” in the climate system, as they intensively release heat and moisture to the atmosphere, thereby acting to organize clouds and precipitation systems and set conditions favorable for recurrent development of storms. This spinoff is a unique collection of the outcome of the particular project. The collected papers cover a wide range of aspects of ocean–atmosphere interaction characteristic of the oceanic fronts and continental marginal seas, unveiled through observational, theoretical, analytical, and numerical investigations. Most of the readers of the book are assumed to be researchers and graduate students who study climate dynamics, physical oceanography, atmospheric science, and air–sea interaction.

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes is a jointly produced publication of The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society. Written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, the publication is intended as a brief, readable reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and other individuals seeking authoritative information on the some of the questions that continue to be asked. Climate Change makes clear what is well-established and where understanding is still developing. It echoes and builds upon the long history of climate-related work from both national academies, as well as on the newest climate-change assessment from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It touches on current areas of active debate and ongoing research, such as the link between ocean heat content and the rate of warming.

This volume is based on plenary presentations from Challenges of a Changing Earth, a Global Change Open Science Conference held in Amsterdam, The Neth- lands, in July 2001. The meeting brought together about 1400 scientists from 105 co- tries around the world to describe, discuss and debate the latest scientific - derstanding of natural and human-driven changes to our planet. It examined the effects of these changes on our societies and our lives, and explored what the future might hold. The presentations drew upon global change science from an exceptionally wide range of disciplines and approaches. Issues of societal importance – the food system, air quality, the carbon cycle, and water resources – were highlighted from both policy and science perspectives. Many of the talks presented the exciting scientific advances of the past decade of international research on global change. Several challenged the scientific community in the future. What are the visionary and creative new approaches needed for studying a complex planetary system in which human activities are in- mately interwoven with natural processes? This volume aims to capture the timeliness and excitement of the science p- sented in Amsterdam. The plenary speakers were given a daunting task: to reproduce their presentations in a way that delivers their scientific messages accurately and in sufficient detail but at the same time reaches a very broad audience well beyond their own disciplines. Furthermore, they were required to do this in just a few pages.

A study of global warming, discussing the elements of Earth's climate system, the carbon cycle, plate tectonics, the flow of energy, planetary and global motions in the atmosphere, local motions in the atmosphere, ocean currents, the global warming issue, and what global warming means for the future.

Comprehensive overview of the inroads made by Complexity Thinking approaches and ideas in the study and practice of world politics. Why are policymakers, scholars, and the general public so surprised when the world turns out to be unpredictable? World Politics at the Edge of Chaos suggests that the study of international politics needs new forms of knowledge to respond to emerging challenges such as the interconnectedness between local and transnational realities; between markets, migration, and social movements; and between pandemics, a looming energy crisis, and climate change. Asserting that Complexity Thinking (CT) provides a much-needed lens for interpreting these challenges, the contributors offer a parallel assessment of the impact of CT to anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric (post-human) International Relations. Using this perspective, the result should be less surprise when confronting the dynamism of a fragile and unpredictable global life.

"This book aims to compile some of the important results from the latest research in climate variation and prediction studies with a focus on the role of the ocean, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. Several new modes of ocean-atmosphere climate variations have been discovered in the last decade, and the advance of climate models have made it possible to predict some of these modes several seasons ahead. This has improved the society's ability to use model predictions to mitigate climate disaster risks. Leading experts in the field were invited to contribute to this book in order to compile a comprehensive review for the benefit of researchers as well as general readers interested in the subject."--

This book presents the complete story of the inseparably intertwined evolution of life and matter on earth, focussing on four major topics. It analyzes the driving forces behind global change and uses this knowledge to propose principles for global stewardship.