Earth System Hisotry

Collected articles in this series are dedicated to the development and use of software for earth system modelling and aims at bridging the gap between IT solutions and climate science. The particular topic covered in this volume addresses the issue of data input/ouitput and post-processing in the context of Earth system modeling, with an emphasis on parallel I/O, storage management and analysis subsystems for very large scale data requirements.

One of the fundamental goals of earth system science research is to adopt a more holistic view of the earth as a ‘system’ comprising different domains. The Society of Earth Scientists has brought out this multidisciplinary publication to emphasize the need of an integrated approach to understand the Earth system.

It is with pleasure that I write the foreword to this excellent book. A wide range of observations in geology and solid-earth geophysics can be - plained in terms of fractal distributions. In this volume a collection of - pers considers the fractal behavior of the Earth's continental crust. The book begins with an excellent introductory chapter by the editor Dr. V.P. Dimri. Surface gravity anomalies are known to exhibit power-law spectral behavior under a wide range of conditions and scales. This is self-affine fractal behavior. Explanations of this behavior remain controversial.

Thermodynamics is needed to understand many processes on Earth, be they physical, chemical, or biological. Thermodynamics is critical to study the atmosphere (lapse rate, fohn winds, circulation), hydrosphere (latent and sensible heat, pressure dependence of freezing/boiling points), geosphere (geothermal gradients, mineral stability) and the biosphere (redox zonation, evolution of biogeochemical cycles). This introduction to thermodynamics and equilibria aims to provide the basic concepts of relevance for atmospheric, marine, climate, and environmental sciences and to prepare students for more advanced classes in physical chemistry, mineralogy, and petrology.

Global change involves complex and far-reaching variations in the Earth’s systems, and satellite observations have been widely used in global change studies. Over the past five decades, Earth observation has developed into a comprehensive system that can conduct dynamic monitoring of the land, the oceans and the atmosphere at the local, regional and even global scale. At the same time, although a large number of Earth observation satellites have been launched, very few of them are used in global change studies. The lack of scientific satellite programs greatly hinders research on global change.

This book presents cutting-edge remote sensing research, outlining the advanced use of European Space Agency (ESA) satellite data in the context of climate change. The ESA, through its Support to Science Element (STSE) Programme, funds a network of young post-doc scientists pursuing 2-year cutting-edge research projects in the field of remote sensing. This “Changing Earth Science Network” focuses on the exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) data to address major issues concerning the broader context of climate change in five scientific research domains: the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere, land and solid earth.