Long-Term Climate Monitoring by the Global Climate Observing System

Download or read book Long-Term Climate Monitoring by the Global Climate Observing System written by Thomas R. Karl and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the climate warming? Is the hydrological cycle intensifying? Is the climate becoming more variable or extreme? Is the chemical composition of the atmosphere changing? Is the solar irradiance constant? Answers to these questions are fundamental to understanding, predicting, and assessing climate on time scales ranging from weeks to a century. Atmospheric, oceanic, and environmental scientists have primarily relied on an ad-hoc collection of disparate environmental observational and data management systems to address these problems. But these systems were not designed to measure climate variations and, as a result, changes and variations of the earth system during the instrumental climate record is far from unequivocal. This book develops a framework from which a Global Climate Observing System, currently being discussed in international forums, can be implemented to monitor changes and variations of climate. Audience: Administrators, policy makers, professionals, graduate students, and others interested in learning how we can ensure a long-term climate record for application to national economic development and understanding ecosystem dynamics.