Ebook: Global-Regional Linkages in the Earth System
- Tags: Meteorology/Climatology, Geoecology/Natural Processes, Nature Conservation
- Series: Global Change — The IGBP Series (closed)
- Year: 2002
- Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- pdf
Global environmental change occupies a central niche in the pantheon of modern sciences. There is an urgent need to know and understand the way in which global biogeochemical cycles have changed over different time scales in the past and are likely to do so in the future. Equally important, it is necessary to determine the extent to which natural variability and that induce by anthropogenic activities are bringing about change. A number of international co-operative scientific programmes ad dress these issues. Chief among them are the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Inter national Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) for global change. This book is one of a series of IGBP syntheses drawing together findings in global environmental change over the past decade or so. One focus of IGBP activities is the System for Analysis, Research and Training (START). Co-sponsored by the WCRP and IHDP, START establishes regional research networks for global change science in developing countries, stimulates and carries out global change research in developing regions of the world, and builds capacity to undertake such research at personal, institutional and regional levels. Several regional global change networks have been established, and much regional research has been accomplished in the last five years or so. In this book, work relating to four of the older START regions, Southern Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, will be used as case studies to illustrate regional-global linkages in Earth System Science.
This book synthesizes current knowledge of regional-global linkages in four regions to demonstrate that study of environmental change on a regional scale can enhance understanding of global-scale environmental changes. The atmospheric circulation over Southern Africa links regional nutrient and pollutant sources to distant sinks affecting both regional and global ecosystem functioning. Extended human modification of land cover in East Asia has altered the complex surface-atmosphere exchanges impacting the Asian monsoon system. Biogenic and anthropogenic emissions over South Asia are implicated in changes in global tropospheric ozone and oceanic biogeochemical balances. Economic globalisation has negatively impacted regional environments of Southeast Asia.