 | Arctic and Environmental Change Subjects: Built Environment; Environment and Sustainability; Ecology - Environment Studies; Landscape; Landscape Conservation Maintenance and Management; This timely book presents a wide-ranging review of Arctic environmental change in response to global warming, and gives a broad insight into the transformation of the Arctic which we can expect during the next century. It is in high northern latitudes that we can expect to observe global warming at its most powerful, making it a natural laboratory where climate changes and their impacts can be monitored and studied more readily than elsewhere in the world. Fourteen authoritative reviews cover the predictions of warming rates by General Circulation Models; variabilities in atmospheric circulation and moisture flux; the dynamics of the polar vortex in the Arctic and its role in ozone loss; the countervailing influence of air pollution in reducing solar irradiance; and the impact of climatic change on Arctic terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Also detailed are the thermohaline circulation of the ocean, the extent and thickness of sea ice, the sizes of glaciers and ice sheets, and the extent of permafrost. Moving to past changes, the records from Greenland ice cores and deep ocean drilling are reviewed for what they tell us about past climates and glaciation in the Arctic., The book paints a vivid and disturbing picture of the enhanced warming that can be expected in the Arctic relative to lower latitudes, and of the major impacts that this will have on the northern cryosphere. It will be an invaluable reference for anyone seeking a greater understanding of the factors and processes affecting the arctic environment, which may ultimately have a major impact on global climatic change. Peter Wadhams, Doctor of Science, is a Reader In Polar Studies at, and formerly the Director of, the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. His research interests are sea ice and polar oceanography. He has led numerous expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic., Julian Dowdeswell is Director and Professor at the Centre for Glaciology, University of Wales, Aberystwyth He is a glaciologist who has worked extensively in the Arctic, particularly in Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land., Andrew N. Schof ield is Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He has developed centrifuge methods for geotechnical problems affecting ice. |
