Bøger i Springer Praxis Books serien

This book details the way in which the world's plant life partly controls its own environment. It explains some of the underlying mechanisms by which life controls how our planet works, the climate, the atmosphere and the oceans.

The most consistent signatures of climate warming have occurred at northern high latitudes (IPCC, 2001), and the potential impacts of a few degrees increase in surface temperature include a reduction in sea ice extent, a positive feedback to climate warming due to lowering of surface albedo, and changes to surface runo?

Skylab is not just a story of space hardware and space science, but also of space explorers and pioneers.

Over the past 35 years more than 100 individual astronauts and cosmonauts have performed nearly 200 EVAs, (spacewalks), either singularly or in teams in Earth orbit, deep space or on the Moon.

This book tells the story of the Soviet and Russian lunar programme, from its origins to the present-day federal Russian space programme. Brian Harvey describes the techniques devised by the USSR for lunar landing, from the LK lunar module to the LOK lunar orbiter and versions tested in Earth's orbit.

As the debate about the environmental cost of nuclear power and the issue of nuclear safety continues, a comprehensive assessment of the Chernobyl accident, its long-term environmental consequences and solutions to the problems found, is timely.

The authors cover the scientific significance of ring studies, the history of their discovery and characterization, the observations of Pioneer 10 at Jupiter, Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 at Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 at all four giant planets of the solar system, and Galileo at Jupiter.

In its revised 2nd edition, this book examines current understanding of the relationship between sunspots and the Earth's climate.

Even a suitable skeptic of certain pronouncements about the age and structure of the Universe should be pleased with the large steps that have been taken in furthering our understanding of the Universe since the early 1990's. In short, the Universe of our expectations rarely matches the Universe as it is discovered.

This book describes a new tool called the Generic Model System for simulations and assessment of potential radioactive spreading in the Arctic regions.

Contents are divided into major topics where the three "souls" of modern celestial mechanics (dynamical systems, Solar System and stellar systems, spaceflight dynamics) play a major role.

The first popular science book to examine scientifically the methods for detecting planets around other stars, the possibility that they might support life, and speculate as to what aliens might look like. It poses the question: are we alone?

The first book on the subject, this monograph examines the phenomenon of a huge sealed, freshwater lake, isolated from the rest of the world by kilometers' thick ice.

This cutting edge book analyzes the effect of aerosols on the Earth's climate and introduces for the first time satellite aerosol remote sensing over land. The book is written by specialists working at the forefront of research in this important area.

GRBs remain a subject of fascination for scientists, despite having been known about for 35 years. Both authors have been active in GRB observations for more than two decades, so this is an outstanding account of the history and perspectives of GRB research.

Pays considerable attention to various aspects of light absorption inside particles, including internal field distributions, MDR resonances, and absorption in restricted regions inside particles.

They assess the role of different types of soil and vegetation in the assimilation of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and discuss models of the atmosphere ocean gas exchange and its role in the carbon dioxide cycle, paying special attention to the role of the Arctic Basin.

It is not possible to understand the present or future climate unless scientists can account for the enormous and rapid cycles of glaciation that have taken place over the last million years, and which are expected to continue into the future.

This overview of classical celestial mechanics focuses the interplay with dynamical systems. Paradigmatic models introduce key concepts - order, chaos, invariant curves and cantori - followed by the investigation of dynamical systems with numerical methods.

Cosmic rays are an essential part of the universe. This book reviews our present knowledge of cosmic rays, describing how they are born in a wide range of cosmic processes, how they are accelerated and how they behave during their journey across the Galaxy.

Stars Above, Earth Below examines a range of astronomical topics in relation to the landscapes, processes and cultures which can be seen and experienced within US National Parks. The geological features readers can see are linked to the very latest NASA spacecraft discoveries on other planets and their moons.

This book deals with a particular class of approximation methods in the context of light scattering by small particles. Soft particles occur in ocean optics, biomedical optics, atmospheric optics and in many industrial applications. This class of approximations has been termed as eikonal or soft particle approximations.

The present impetus to drive down the overall cost of space missions is leading to ever-increasing demands for more efficient design techniques over a wide range of interplanetary missions, and the methods now being utilised to do this are described in this timely and authoritative work.

The inorganic and organic water constituents, often called color-producing agents (CPAs), responsible for water color are generally referred to as water quality parameters.

This book covers Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) imaging of Aleutian volcanoes. InSAR is a relatively new remote sensing tool whose images enable the construction of detailed mechanical models to enhance the study of magmatic processes.

The theory of the scattering of light by small particles is very important in a wide range of applications in atmospheric physics and atmospheric optics, ocean optics, remote sensing, astronomy and astrophysics and biological optics.

This unique book includes 250 maps related to various factors of meteorology and climate and their effects on the African continent. It provides detailed coverage of fundamentally important issues concerning African meterology, climatology, tropical circulation, rainfall, drought and climate change.

Soviet Robots in the Solar System provides a history of the Soviet robotic lunar and planetary exploration program from its inception, with the attempted launch of a lunar impactor on September 23, 1958, to the last launch in the Russian national scientific space program in the 20th Century, Mars 96, on November 16, 1996.

Recent surveys have provided new and updated information into public insights of the nascent space tourism industry. The book also provides a manual for future suborbital and orbital private space explorers. Over half of the book is dedicated to providing for the first time essential training material for private spaceflight participants.

Once again comprehensive and authoritative, this second edition puts spacecraft propulsion systems in perspective, from earth orbit launchers to astronomical/space exploration vehicles. It includes new material on fusion propulsion, new figures and updates.