Dynamics of Multiscale Earth Systems / Edition 1

by Horst J. Neugebauer, Clemens Simmer

Overview

In many aspects science becomes conducted nowadays through technology and preferential criteria of economy. Thus investigation and knowledge is evidently linked to a specific purpose. Especially Earth science is confronted with two major human perspectives concerning our natural environment:sustainability of resources and assessment of risks. Both aspects are expressing urgent needs of the living society, but in the same way those needs are addressing a long lasting fundamental challenge which has so far not been met. Following on the patterns of economy and technology, the key is presumed to be found through a devel- ment of feasible concepts for a management ofbothournaturalenvironmentand in one or the other way the realm of life. Although new techniques for obser- tion and analysis led to an increase of rather specific knowledge about particular phenomena, yet we fail now even more frequently to avoid unforeseen impli- tions and sudden changes of a situation. Obviously the improved technological tools and the assigned expectations on a management of nature still exceed our traditional scientific experience and accumulated competence. Earth- and Life- Sciences are nowadays exceedingly faced with the puzzling nature of an almost boundless network of relations, i. e. , the complexity of phenomena with respect to their variability. The disciplinary notations and their particular approaches are thus no longer accounting sufficiently for the recorded context of phenomena, for their permanent variability and their unpredictable implications. The large environmental changes of glacial climatic cycles, for instance, demonstrate this complexity of such a typical phenomenology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783540417965
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	07/29/2003
Series:	Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences , #97
Edition description:	2003
Pages:	362
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

Scale Concepts in Geosciences.- Scale Aspects of Geo-Data Sampling.- Notions of Scale in Geosciences.- Complexity of Change and the Scale Concept in Earth System Modelling.- Multi-Scale Representation of Data.- Wavelet Analysis of Geoscientific Data.- Diffusion Methods for Form Generalisation.- Multi-Scale Aspects in the Management of Geologically Defined Geometries.- Scale Problems in Physical Process Models.- Wavelet and Multigrid Methods for Convection-Diffusion Equations.- Analytical Coupling of Scales — Transport of Water and Solutes in Porous Media.- Upscaling of Hydrological Models by Means of Parameter Aggregation Technique.- Parameterisation of Turbulent Transport in the Atmosphere.- Precipitation Dynamics of Convective Clouds.- Sediment Transport — from Grains to Partial Differential Equations.- Water Uptake by Plant Roots — a Multi-Scale Approach.- Scale-Related Approaches to Geo-Processes.- Fractals — Pretty Pictures or a Key to Understanding Earth Processes?.- Fractal Variability of Drilling Profiles in the Upper Crystalline Crust.- Is the Earth’s Surface Critical? The Role of Fluvial Erosion and Landslides.- Scale Problems in Geometric-Kinematic Modelling of Geological Objects.- Depositional Systems and Missing Depositional Records.- Multi-Scale Processes and the Reconstruction of Palaeoclimate.- A Statistical-Dynamic Analysis of Precipitation Data with High Temporal Resolution.