The Role of Tropics in Climate Change: Global Case Studies uses a 20-chapter, easy-to-understand format to centralize the practical application ideas for functional metagenomics. This important resource not only includes chapters on next-generation sequencing technologies to study important biogeochemical cycles, degradation pathways and detoxification, but also gives insight into several tools that have been developed to integrate metadata and sequence data, allowing downstream comparative analyses of different datasets using several ecological indices. The book further explains newly developed techniques for sequencing DNA, generating shorter fragments than Sanger sequencing techniques to quickly read larger sequences in a shorter amount of time. - Provides a wealth of information to readers on state-of-the-art applications of metagenomics - Summarizes our current knowledge of the use of metagenomics and gives a novel and powerful insight into the already existing bioremediation process - Gives an overall picture of metagenomics and its application, processes, and future prospects in the field of bioremediation

What can we expect as global change progresses? Will there be thresholds that trigger sudden shifts in environmental conditionsâ€"or that cause catastrophic destruction of life? Effects of Past Global Change on Life explores what earth scientists are learning about the impact of large-scale environmental changes on ancient lifeâ€"and how these findings may help us resolve today's environmental controversies. Leading authorities discuss historical climate trends and what can be learned from the mass extinctions and other critical periods about the rise and fall of plant and animal species in response to global change. The volume develops a picture of how environmental change has closed some evolutionary doors while opening othersâ€"including profound effects on the early members of the human family. An expert panel offers specific recommendations on expanding research and improving investigative toolsâ€"and targets historical periods and geological and biological patterns with the most promise of shedding light on future developments. This readable and informative book will be of special interest to professionals in the earth sciences and the environmental community as well as concerned policymakers.

Tropical ecosystems - the regions between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn - play an important role in global processes, economic issues, and political concerns. In their natural state, tropical ecosystems support a large quantity of above- and below-ground biomass, and constitute a major part of the terrestrial carbon pool. Conversion of the natural ecosystem to agriculture and forestry ecosystems disturbs this ecological balance. Global Climate Change and Tropical Ecosystems presents data on carbon pool fluxes from case studies in 12 countries in tropical regions. The chapters cover: Characteristics of tropical ecosystems Soil and biotic carbon pools Impacts of land use and soil management Slash-and-burn practices Crop residue and fertility management This volume adds to the understanding of pedospheric processes in tropical ecosystems and how to better use soils as a sink for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. With Global Climate Change and Tropical Ecosystems you will understand the link between soil productivity, environmental quality and the global carbon cycle, not only in these ecologically sensitive regions but worldwide.

Climate change represents one of the most alarming long-term threats to ecosystems the world over. This new collection of papers provides, for the first time, an overview of the potentially serious impact that climate change may have on tropical forests. The authors, a multi-disciplinary group of leading experts in climatology, forestry, ecology and conservation biology, present a state-of-knowledge snapshot of how tropical forests are likely to react to the changes being wrought on our planet's atmosphere and climate. Tropical forests represent extraordinary harbours for biological diversity, and yet as deforestation and degradation continue apace, they are under greater pressure from human impacts than ever before. Climate change adds yet another threat to these valuable ecosystems, and this volume demonstrates just how significant a problem this may really be. The authors identify certain types of forest, including tropical montane cloud forest that may be particularly vulnerable. They also show the strong likelihood of global warming aggravating problems in already fragmented forest areas.

The goal of this book is to provide a current overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests, to investigate past, present, and future climatic influences on the ecosystems with the highest biodiversity on the planet.Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change will be the first book to examine how tropical rain forest ecology is altered by climate change, rather than simply seeing how plant communities were altered. Shifting the emphasis onto ecological processes e.g. how diversity is structured by climate and the subsequent impact on tropical forest ecology, provides the reader with a more comprehensive coverage. A major theme of this book that emerges progressively is the interaction between humans, climate and forest ecology. While numerous books have appeared dealing with forest fragmentation and conservation, none have explicitly explored the long term occupation of tropical systems, the influence of fire and the future climatic effects of deforestation, coupled with anthropogenic emissions. Incorporating modelling of past and future systems paves the way for a discussion of conservation from a climatic perspective, rather than the usual plea to stop logging.

Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.

From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure. In Tropic of Chaos, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe--the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's midlatitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters. But he also reveals the unsettling presence of Western military forces and explains how they see an opportunity in the crisis to prepare for open-ended global counterinsurgency. Parenti argues that this incipient "climate fascism" -- a political hardening of wealthy states-- is bound to fail. The struggling states of the developing world cannot be allowed to collapse, as they will take other nations down as well. Instead, we must work to meet the challenge of climate-driven violence with a very different set of sustainable economic and development policies.

The climate record for the past 100,000 years clearly indicates that the climate system has undergone periodic-and often extreme-shifts, sometimes in as little as a decade or less. The causes of abrupt climate changes have not been clearly established, but the triggering of events is likely to be the result of multiple natural processes. Abrupt climate changes of the magnitude seen in the past would have far-reaching implications for human society and ecosystems, including major impacts on energy consumption and water supply demands. Could such a change happen again? Are human activities exacerbating the likelihood of abrupt climate change? What are the potential societal consequences of such a change? Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises looks at the current scientific evidence and theoretical understanding to describe what is currently known about abrupt climate change, including patterns and magnitudes, mechanisms, and probability of occurrence. It identifies critical knowledge gaps concerning the potential for future abrupt changes, including those aspects of change most important to society and economies, and outlines a research strategy to close those gaps. Based on the best and most current research available, this book surveys the history of climate change and makes a series of specific recommendations for the future.

The book brings together research topics having a broad focus on human and climate change impacts on the terrestrial ecosystems in the tropics in general and more specifically from the most significant and vulnerable Himalayan ecosystem. A total of 16 contributions included in the book cover a diverse range of global change themes such as the impacts of changing temperature and precipitation on soil ecosystems, forest degradation, extent and impacts of invasive species, plant responses to pollution, climate change impacts on biodiversity and tree phenology, environmental changes associated with land use, importance of traditional knowledge in climate change adaptation, timberline ecosystems, and role of integrated landscape modeling for sustainable management of natural resources. The book is a collective endeavour of an international multidisciplinary group of scientists focused on improving our understanding of the impacts of global change on the structure and functioning of tropical ecosystems and addressing the challenges of their future sustainable management. We hope that the book will help researchers working in the areas of ecology and environmental science to update their knowledge. We also expect that natural resource managers and policy planners will find explanations for some of their observations and hypotheses on multiple global change factors impacting tropical ecosystems and especially Himalayan ecosystems.

This book presents a unique and comprehensive view of the fundamental dynamical and thermodynamic principles underlying the large circulations of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system Dynamics of The Tropical Atmosphere and Oceans provides a detailed description of macroscale tropical circulation systems such as the monsoon, the Hadley and Walker Circulations, El Niño, and the tropical ocean warm pool. These macroscale circulations interact with a myriad of higher frequency systems, ranging from convective cloud systems to migrating equatorial waves that attend the low-frequency background flow. Towards understanding and predicting these circulation systems. A comprehensive overview of the dynamics and thermodynamics of large-scale tropical atmosphere and oceans is presented using both a “reductionist” and “holistic” perspectives of the coupled tropical system. The reductionist perspective provides a detailed description of the individual elements of the ocean and atmospheric circulations. The physical nature of each component of the tropical circulation such as the Hadley and Walker circulations, the monsoon, the incursion of extratropical phenomena into the tropics, precipitation distributions, equatorial waves and disturbances described in detail. The holistic perspective provides a physical description of how the collection of the individual components produces the observed tropical weather and climate. How the collective tropical processes determine the tropical circulation and their role in global weather and climate is provided in a series of overlapping theoretical and modelling constructs. The structure of the book follows a graduated framework. Following a detailed description of tropical phenomenology, the reader is introduced to dynamical and thermodynamical constraints that guide the planetary climate and establish a critical role for the tropics. Equatorial wave theory is developed for simple and complex background flows, including the critical role played by moist processes. The manner in which the tropics and the extratropics interact is then described, followed by a discussion of the physics behind the subtropical and near-equatorial precipitation including arid regions. The El Niño phenomena and the monsoon circulations are discussed, including their covariance and predictability. Finally, the changing structure of the tropics is discussed in terms of the extent of the tropical ocean warm pool and its relationship to the intensity of global convection and climate change. Dynamics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Oceans is aimed at advanced undergraduate and early career graduate students. It also serves as an excellent general reference book for scientists interested in tropical circulations and their relationship with the broader climate system.