Book Description

The only single-source reference available on atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, and atmospheric models

This fully revised and expanded version of John H. Seinfeld's successful Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics of Air Pollution provides a rigorous, comprehensive treatment of the chemistry of the atmosphere. With new chapters on such important topics as cloud physics, nucleation, and wet deposition, this book offers a truly up-to-date examination of atmospheric chemistry today, including:
* Chemistry of the stratosphere and troposphere
* Formation, growth, dynamics, thermodynamics, and properties of aerosols
* Meteorology of air pollution
* Transport, diffusion, and removal of species in the atmosphere
* Formation and chemistry of clouds
* Interaction of atmospheric chemistry and climate
* Radiative and climatic effects of gases and particles
* Formulation of mathematical chemical/transport models of the atmosphere.

Complete with solved examples, problems graded according to difficulty, and hundreds of illustrations, this state-of-the art reference is an ideal resource for both students and professionals in all areas of engineering as well as atmospheric science. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The Bible
As if this needs a review... its a bible for atomspheric scientists of all genre. A must have. Especially good for any grad student preparing for the random question during an oral exam. Not that you could read the thing cover to cover, but there is something for everyone.

If you need a great reference, then this is it. If you are not sure you should buy one of the best references for atomsopheric chemistry and physics, then there is no reason to. That's just a sign that you probably don't need it.

Everything you need to know about Atmospheric Science
This book has it all. If you are in the field of atmospheric sciences, it is a muct have. If you're not in the field, but are interested in learning about atmospheric science, I'd highly recommend it. It's a technical book, with plenty of math, but it is written in an engaging, easy to read format. It's packed with information on eveything from tropospheric ozone formation to industruial plume dispersion modeling. It has everything you need to know about atmospheric science. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great Resource
This is a must for conservation education professionals. The numerous indexes and summary descriptions of organizations are wonderful. ... Read more

Book Description

This volume provides an up-to-date presentation of climate change and its implications for society. Burroughs, an expert on the subject, begins with balanced coverage of the physical principles of the global climate, its behavior on all timescales, and the evidence for and consequences of past change. He then reviews the methods used to measure climate change and the statistical methods for analyzing data.A comprehensive guide, the volume also explores the causes of change and how this behavior can be modeled. The final sections discuss predictions of future climate change and the economic and political debate surrounding its prevention and mitigation. This is a valuable undergraduate textbook for a wide range of courses, including meteorology, oceanography, environmental science, earth science, geography, history, agriculture and social science. It will also appeal to a wider general audience of readers in search of a better understanding of climate change. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Good Book!
I first met the book in the uni library. Having been teaching natural resources and environmental economics, I find this intermediate textbook with is useful and worthy of recommendating for those postgraduates who have strong interests in theoretical exploration. Since almost all textbooks in the market are elementary and are not suitable for the advanced readers, this book with new approaches has been increasingly used in the uni. However, this book does not pay enough attention to environmental policy. This should be considered by the authors when the third edition is composed. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Hydrodynamics and Transport for Water Quality Modeling presents a complete overview of current methods used to describe or predict transport in aquatic systems, with special emphasis on water quality modeling. The book features detailed descriptions of each method, supported by sample applications and case studies drawn from the authors' years of experience in the field. Each chapter examines a variety of modeling approaches, from simple to complex. This unique text/reference offers a wealth of information previously unavailable from a single source.The book begins with an overview of basic principles, and an introduction to the measurement and analysis of flow. The following section focuses on rivers and streams, including model complexity and data requirements, methods for estimating mixing, hydrologic routing methods, and unsteady flow modeling. The third section considers lakes and reservoirs, and discusses stratification and temperature modeling, mixing methods, reservoir routing and water balances, and dynamic modeling using one-, two-, and three-dimensional models. The book concludes with a section on estuaries, containing topics such as origins and classification, tides, mixing methods, tidally averaged estuary models, and dynamic modeling. Over 250 figures support the text.This is a valuable guide for students and practicing modelers who do not have extensive backgrounds in fluid dynamics. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Environmetal Studies
This book provides a good fundamentals on learning the movement of water and chemicals in water. The different conepts in applying models for a specific study can be judged using this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Indoor Air Quality: Sampling Methodologies provides environmental professionals and industrial hygienists with the latest information available in "indoor air quality sampling." In most instances, there are no established government protocols. In this book, the author presents prominent contributions and discusses the practical concerns that determine which sampling approach is best for a given situation.The author defines and clarifies indoor air quality and its historic background. She presents a diagnostic approach to addressing health concerns, brief overview of air handling systems, observations to be made regarding indoor activities, information regarding air emissions from other buildings, and a discussion of individual susceptibilities to various substances. The book covers sampling strategies, sampling/analytical protocols, suggested uses for these protocols, and a means for interpreting results. A one-of-a-kind, practical guide for assessing indoor air quality, this book gives you step-by-step instructions for all sampling tasks and includes background information, occurrence and uses of contaminants, exposure and diagnostic sampling and analytical protocols, and helpful hints based on the author's observations and experience. It shows you how to develop a theory and follow it through to identification of unknown air contaminants. The book contains more than 150 charts, tables, photographs, and drawings and includes an extensive glossary and symptoms index. No other book offers you the concise, in-depth, and practicalcoverage you will find in Indoor Air Quality: Sampling Methodologies. ... Read more

Book Description

Austrian naturalist Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) was far ahead of his time. From his unusually detailed observations of the natural world, he pioneered a completely new understanding of how nature works. He also foresaw, and tried to warn against, the global waste and ecological destruction of our age.

This book describes and explains Schauberger’s insights in contemporary, accessible language. His remarkable discoveries—which address issues such as sick water, ailing forests, climate change and, above all, renewable energy—have dramatic implications for how we should work with nature and its resources. ... Read more

Book Description

Global Physical Climatology is an introductory text devoted to the fundamental physical principles and problems of climate sensitivity and change. Addressing some of the most critical issues in climatology, this text features incisive coverage of topics that are central to understanding orbital parameter theory for past climate changes, and for anthropogenic and natural causes of near-future changes--

Key Features
* Covers the physics of climate change
* Examines the nature of the current climate and its previous changes
* Explores the sensitivity of climate and the mechanisms by which humans are likely to produce near-future climate changes
* Provides instructive end-of-chapter exercises and appendices ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Hooray for Hartmann!
Simply put, this is the only assigned text I kept from my college years. It's compact size and overall readability are excellent. Although intended for advanced undergrads and beginning graduate students, it's still a great reference for multi-disciplinary scientists, basic global circulation modellers, researchers, and professors. The appendices are particularly noteworhty, especially the list of English and Greek symbols commonly used in just about all the physical sciences, and the derivation of SI Units. If anything, the book is pricey (as all in the International Geophysics Series are), but this one is worth it.

The standard of comparison for global systems science.
This is the most thorough, most rigorous, well-written textbook in global systems climatology that I've seen. If you're bright, interested, and aren't allergic to equations (you don't need to read them to understand the book, you just have to not freak out) then this text will teach you more about the planet as a dynamic system than any other that I've seen -- plus, unlike most texbooks, it's not chuck full of stupid mistakes. I've used it in my upper division climatology class since it came out. ... Read more

Book Description

Paperback. The book describes and discusses the numerical methods which are successfully being used for analysing ecological data, using a clear and comprehensive approach. These methods are derived from the fields of mathematical physics, parametric and nonparametric statistics, information theory, numerical taxonomy, archaeology, psychometry, sociometry, econometry and others. Compared to the first edition of Numerical Ecology, this second edition includes three new chapters, dealingwith the analysis of semiquantitative data, canonical analysis and spatial analysis. New sections have been added to almost all other chapters. There are sections listing available computer programs and packages at the end of several chapters. As in the previous English and French editions, there are numerous examples from the ecological literature, and the choice of methods is facilitated by several synoptic tables. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Indespensible reference.
This is THE TEXT to have if you use any of the numerical techniques in the field of quantitative ecology. Its scope if exhaustively comprehensive. The authors clearly explain which methods are at your disposal under given circumstances and which are inappropriate to use. Many of the methods described are illustrated with case studies of ecological examples from the literature. In most cases, the authors walk you thru the computational steps involved in using a particular numerical method--this would make it possible for the reader to construct a "home grown" algorithm for methods unavailable in "off-the-shelf" statistical packages. In addition, the book is also thankfully littered with citations and references for those computer programs that are available for each of the methods described...this is very up-to-date material, as many of these references are web sites! ... Read more

Book Description

It was the Perfect Storm. But instead of raging far out in the Atlantic, the Great Hurricane of 1938 left a wake of death and destruction across seven states. It battered J. P. Morgan's Long Island estate, wiped out beach communities from Watch Hill to Newport, flooded the Connecticut Valley, and flattened Vermont's prized maples. Traveling at record speeds, the storm raced up the Atlantic Coast, reaching New York and New England ahead of hurricane warnings and striking with such ferocity that seismographs in Alaska picked up the impact. Winds, clocked at 186 mph, stripped cars of their paint. Walls of water 50 feet high swept homes and entire families out to sea. Sandwiched between the Great Depression and World War II, the storm had a profound impact upon a generation. "The day of the biggest wind has just passed," the newswires read the next day, "and a great part of the most picturesque America, as old as the Pilgrims, has gone beyond recall or replacement." Drawing upon newspaper accounts, the personal testimony of survivors, forecasters, and archival footage, SUDDEN SEA recounts that terrifying day in gripping detail. Scotti describes the unlikely alignment of meteorological conditions that conspired to bring a tropical cyclone to the Northeast. A masterful storyteller, Scotti follows the trajectory of that awful wind--and recovers for posterity the lost stories of those whose lives, families, and communities were destroyed by the Hurricane of 1938. ... Read more

Reviews (16)

beautiful and dramatic
I picked this book up on a whim and once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. Not having been alive in 1938 I knew very little about this disaster before reading Ms.Scotti's well reserched book. The way she weaves personal stories so seamlessly with the factual information creates a riviting tale of a way of life that would never fuloly be seen again. Ms.Scotti talks about the death and destrction that ravaged the east coast (682 deaths, 432 in Rhode Island alone) but she also talks about the amazing, and in some instaces humorus ways that people surrived the storm.
One of the things that I really love about the book is that it is so full of information and stories, yet I never felt confused or lost, I can't say that for many of the books I have read these days. I think Ms.Scotti is one of the most gifted writers I have had the pleasure of reading. Her ability to tug at your heart strings and not have it be in least bit over done is very refreshing. Personaly I think she is a breath of air as welcome as the sea breeze that must have been blowing along the beach only hours before the storm touched down. I can not wait to read her next book.

Sudden storm sends shockwaves to end summer on somber note
This is nice read, an almost pleasant (but, strangely, not gripping) saga of the great New England Hurricane of September 21,1938. Much of the focus of the storm and the story is on the wealthy Hampton areas of Long Island and the Newport area of Rhode Island. Scotti sets the time and place well: the end of the Depression (with the damage still evident), the brewing war in Europe, and the start of the university school year. This storm came not only at an unusual time but also at unusual places. Much of the damage to homes is the result of wealthy people taking advantage of splendid if dangerous views of the ocean. Some of the dead are domestics left behind to shutter summer homes.

"Sea" offers a clear companion and comparison to "Isaac's Storm," the epic of the Galveston hurricane of 1900. "Sea" is able to focus much more on the human element of the catastrophe, using interviews with survivors, photographs (fourteen glossy pages), and records that were just not kept in or saved from 1900. Survivors are alive today. "Sea" is more about the people who fought, including some who survived, the storm. In "Sea," a smug senior forecaster in Washington, DC dismisses the hurricane forecast of an assistant, striking the word 'hurricane' from the assistant's report for September 21 and leading to a lack of warning to the targeted, highly populated areas. The fact that such a storm was unique or that most of the Atlantic's similar storms pushed to the northeast and out to sea was not a good reason to ignore the disastrous consequences of the "Bermuda high" that kept the storm closer to land. The post-storm analysis may have been the real impetus for the modernization of weather forecasting. repairing the damage to railroads, telephone lines, livestock and roads helped usher in the modern age. Air passenger traffice between New York and Boston increased 500% in the week after the storm.

Scotti, a journalist and mystery novelist, uses words well. "Sea" is laden with brief, connected, poignant stories. Capturing the wildness of the sea and storms is no small task. Scotti even includes a brief set of scenes from the life of Katherine Hepburn from that day: swimming and golfing in Connecticut, before seeing her estate, Tara, being washed away. "Sea: has about five small maps; each could have used a bit more detail. And a larger map, tracking the entire storm of its short life, would have been a good, consistent visual reference point for the reader, and would provide more of the dynamic nature of the storm. Without it, some of the stories are static and difficult to connect.

The Storm of the Century
I started reading this book on Saturday and was finished on Monday morning. It completely held my interest. I enjoyed the human element and couldn't wait to find out what happened to the many people in this devasting hurricane. Each account was breath-taking. It makes me want to know more...I am recommending this book to everyone I come in contact with. That anyone lived through this storm was amazing. It makes you realize what is really important in life. I enjoyed the author's telling of this story.

Interesting book on well-known and published hurricane
The beginning of the book hooked me...but somewhere mid-stream it became a hard read...it took about 6 sittings to read the 240ish page book. Meteorology was barely touched upon, which is fine, considering the Weather Bureau was only taking surface observations at the time and any other deductions would be mere guess-work. Besides, non-mets usually make all kinds of errors, such as assuming the Saffir-Simpson Scale was in use (I don't even think the term "Great Hurricane" had been coined as of that time.) One of the forecasters involved actually became one of the best-skilled hurricane forecasters around...it would have been nice if she expounded on his later career, but no matter.

It seemed like the author tried too hard to weave the individual stories together, and I got lost when going back and forth from different spots in Rhode Island and Long Island. I felt like I was adrift in the storm myself. I did like how she followed up on the characters who survived...that was a nice touch. If you're interested in southern New England and weather, this should be a good buy.

"A strange ochre light came off the ocean..."
Powerful hurricanes are infrequent visitors to New England, but 'The Long Island Express' not only paid a visit---it dropped in unannounced on September 21, 1938 just as many summer residents were on the beach and closing up their ocean-front cottages, among them actress Katharine Hepburn and her mother.

The Weather Bureau gave no cause for alarm, at least not after the hurricane skirted Florida and headed north. The meteorologists in Washington D.C. assumed that the storm would dissipate in the cold waters of the Atlantic, as had happened to all north-bound hurricanes since the Great September Gale devastated New England in 1815.

According to the author, no one could have been prepared for the 1938 storm's speed and ferocity. Sweeping northward from Cape Hatteras, building tremendous momentum as it advanced, the hurricane raced over six hundred miles in only twelve hours. Only the captain of the 'Carinthia,' a small 20,000 ton luxury cruiser that weathered the ferocious brawl 150 miles north of Florida might have given warning. He did radio to shore that his barometer had dropped "almost an inch to 27.85 in less than an hour. It was one of the lowest readings ever recorded in the North Atlantic."

Author Scotti interviewed many survivors of this ferocious storm, and includes the story of Katharine Hepburn who had to escape her seaside house through a dining room window and then battle her way to higher ground:

"When the Hepburns reached high ground, they looked back. [Their house] which had endured tide and wind since the 1870's, pirouetted slowly and sailed away."

Many folks were not as fortunate as the Hepburns. The storm surge was so sudden and so high many houses were completely inundated before their inhabitants could escape. One survivor saw a submerged house leap twenty-five feet into the air and explode. Another watched as a school bus containing his children was overtaken by the onrushing water. Others climbed to the top floors of their homes, then clung desperately to pieces of their roof as their houses washed away beneath them.

It is estimated that 682 people died and another 1,754 were seriously wounded by the 'Long Island Express.' Scotti focuses on a few representative stories, and relates tantalizing fragments of many others.

If you would like to read a first-hand account of the 'Long Island Express,' September 21, 1938 was also the day that Everett S. Allen, recent college graduate and future author of "A Wind to Shake the World," began his first 'real' job as a reporter for the New Bedford 'Standard Times.' His book is one of the finest accounts of this vastly underreported hurricane. ... Read more

Book Description

In most communities, land use regulations are based on a limited model that allows for only one end result: the production of more and more suburbia, composed of endless subdivisions and shopping centers, that ultimately covers every bit of countryside with "improvements." Fortunately, sensible alternatives to this approach do exist, and methods of developing land while at the same time conserving natural areas are available.

In Conservation Design for Subdivisions, Randall G. Arendt explores better ways of designing new residential developments than we have typically seen in our communities. He presents a practical handbook for residential developers, site designers, local officials, and landowners that explains how to implement new ideas about land-use planning and environmental protection. Abundantly illustrated with site plans (many of them in color), floor plans, photographs, and renditions of houses and landscapes, it describes a series of simple and straightforward techniques that allows for land-conserving development.

The author proposes a step-by-step approach to conserving natural areas by rearranging density on each development parcel as it is being planned so that only half (or less) of the buildable land is turned into houselots and streets. Homes are built in a less land-consumptive manner that allows the balance of property to be permanently protected and added to an interconnected network of green spaces and green corridors. Included in the volume are model zoning and subdivision ordinance provisions that can help citizens and local officials implement these innovative design ideas. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

More people need to read this book!
What a concept! Rather than trying to get the most acreage per lot, make smaller lots with more shared open space. A must read for every developer, planning board, and zoning commition. Easy to follow examples show how to preserve historic and environmental features while adding to the value of the land that is developed.

Should be a guide for the future of subdivisions!
If we developed land in the manner the author teaches, America would look so much nicer! A very common sense approach to maintain rural character in an area and stop sprawl from destroying your area. Every developer, planner, new home buyer, builder, conservationist and private citizen should read this and also buy the author's book, "Rural By Design".

excellent reference guide that will help combat urban sprawl
Cheers for Randall G. Arendt, et al. For years my government agency has been fighting a loosing battle in Florida with unmanaged and unfettered urban growth. It seemed as though nothing could stem the tide of urban sprawl until two things happened. One was an election of a more centralist government and the other was the introduction of "designing for conservation" into our policy making levels. This concept was brought into clear focus by Arendt's book. The authors not only presented a practical and economically sound guide for growth that can benefit developers, but the reference can act as a mechanism to help preserve the environmental cohesiveness of any community. The policy makers in our community were so impressed with this book that fifteen (15) copies were purchased to be placed into the hands of influential politicians, developers and regulatory agencies.

this book is a blueprint for land development of the future.
As a land developer this book brought into focus the problems that haave been growing as more and more of the land in my area has been consumed, and we have less and less to develop. At first I thought it would be another environmental tirade against land development,but instead realised it was a very practical and economically sound guide for development that would benefit me and also help maintain the character of my community. Arendt's concern is for the environment and the preservation of open spaces and connective corridors of space and natural habitat between differing parcels of land in a given area. His solutions achieve these goals, but of special interest to me as a developer is that his solutions also mean no loss of density, reduced costs and higher land values. Excellent illustrations, easy to understand and worth the price many times over. ... Read more

Book Description

Environmental Health has established itself as the most succinct and comprehensive textbook on the subject. This extensively revised and rewritten third edition continues this tradition by incorporating new developments and by adding timely coverage of topics such as environmental economics and terrorism.

As in previous volumes, the new edition presents balanced assessments of environmental problems, examining their local and global implications, their short- and long-range impacts, and their importance in both developed and less developed countries of the world. The Third Edition also addresses emerging issues such as environmental justice, deforestation, the protection of endangered species, multiple chemical sensitivity, and the application of the threshold concept in evaluating the effects of toxic and radioactive materials.

Whether discussing acid rain, ozone depletion, global warming, or more traditional subjects such as the management and control of air, water, and food, Dade Moeller emphasizes the need for a systems approach. As with previous volumes, Environmental Health, Third Edition, offers a depth of understanding that is without peer. While it covers technical details, it is also a book that anyone with an interest in the environment can pick up and browse at random.

Book Description

The field of environmental microbiology encompasses aspects of several areas of study including microbial ecology, molecular genetics, and environmental science. Environmental Microbiology is the first book to offer a comprehensive discussion of this field as a discipline, which the authors define as the study of microbial fate and activity in air, water, and soil, and the resulting impact on human health and welfare. While the roots of environmental microbiology can be traced to sanitary engineering (water and wastewater treatment), the field has grown to include other practical issues such as bioremediation, the control of known and emerging waterborne pathogens, microbial risk assessment, and environmental biotechnology. Five general areas are emphasized in this text: (i) Foundation chapters, (ii) microbial environments, (iii) detection of microbial activity, (iv) the impact of microbial activity on the environment in terms of nutrient cycling and pollutant fate, and (v) detection and control of pathogens in the environment. Designed for courses at senior undergraduate and graduate levels, Environmental Microbiology will also serve as an essential reference for environmental microbiologists, microbial ecologists, and environmental engineers, as well as those interested in epidemiology, water and wastewater treatment, and biotechnology.

Key Features
Among the Highlights of this state-of-the-art Textbook:
* Includes foundation chapters for background in biological and earth sciences
* Covers emerging areas such as transport of microbes and DNA, microbial risk assessment, and use of molecular detection in environmental applications
* References key or landmark works without interrupting the flow of text
* Describes the newest analytical and molecular methodologies
* Contains many detailed, full-color graphics to make the text visually stimulating
* Presents numerous "case studies" to emphasize relevance to real-life situations
* Provides study questions at the end of each chapter ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Just mediocre.
I was anxious to receive this book, since it was praised as one of the best books available in the area of environmental microbiology. After reading through the pages, I just couldn't agree with this statement.
Here are some of the good points of this book: It's written in a fairly easy to understand language and provides a lot of pictures and graphs to illustrate important concepts.
Here are the bad points: It summarizes a lot and leaves out a lot of details and information. Whoever buys this book better know something about biochemistry and microbiology already. The graphs and pictures are sometimes ridiculous and of poor quality, almost like they were done at a home PC.
The book would be best for somebody who is a hobby environmentalist that wants to expand his/her knowledge, or undergraduate students of biology who want to explore the environmental aspect of microbiology out of curiosity. If you are serious about environmental microbiology and really want to get into it on a more professional level, I suggest the "Manual of Environmental Microbiology" 2nd edition, published by the American Society for Microbiology. It's a little more expensive, but worth every penny!

Environmental Microbiology
This is one of the most detailed, interesting, well illustrated books in microbiology that I have ever read. It gets right to the information that someone working in the environmental field needs, all in one place. No more digging around through multiple sources and hunting the internet for the latest information - its all here. ... Read more

Book Description

The Lake and Pond Management Guidebook is the successor to the bestselling Lake Smarts: The First Lake Maintenance Handbook, the "bible" for small-scale lake and pond improvements, published by the Terrene Institute in 1993. Completely revised and updated, now published by Lewis Publishers, this guidebook contains over 300 ideas and projects including step-by-step practical, low-cost solutions to a wide range of problems that lake management professionals face everyday. Coverage includes shoreland buffer installation, fisheries management, reducing nuisance algal growth, controlling exotic aquatic plants, lakeside wastewater treatment systems, small scale dredging, and more. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Lake Detective... He Can't Be Stumped! A great GLer
This is that guy from AM1500 KSTP... Garage Logic, with Joe Soucheray. He goes by "The Lake Detective", and all he does is lakes, I guess. He's found a great niche in MN, land of 10,000 of 'em. Being a lakeshore owner, I've already used some of his techniques to keep my shore in great shape. The beauty of a lot of his approaches is that the solutions mostly seem pretty low-tech and inexpensive. But that's a good thing. I didn't have to rent expensive equipment to get my shore cleared, and the results have been great.

Color pictures would help, but the black-n-whites do the job, I guess. This $80 book saved me hundreds (maybe thousands) from what I was going to do to 'fix up' my shore... Money well spent!

A GLer in St. Paul ... Read more

Book Description

With in-depth analysis of past, present, and future issues in industrial ecology, this book seeks to meet the needs of the product-design engineers.Includes discussion of the environmental impact of common industrial approaches, with special emphasis given to the long-term effects.This book is good for product-design professionals seeking to attain information about sustainability and design techniques. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great reference for students in a wide variety of majors.
The book presents the main topics of environmental science in a clear, organized format, relating them to industrial production of goods. Full of visual aids, excercises, and suggested reading lists at the end of each chapter, could definetly be a text book for undergrads.

Humanity and Environment.Technology and Industry. Lyfe-Cycle Assessment. Process and Product Audits. Industrial Design. Materials, Packaging and Transportation. Recycling. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Everybody knows the Dark Ages weren't really dark, right?Not so fast, counters archaeological journalist David Keys, maybe it's more than just a slightly judgmental metaphor.His book Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, based on years of careful research spanning five continents, argues that sometime in A.D. 535, a worldwide disaster struck and uprooted nearly every culture then extant. Given contemporary reports of the sun being blotted out or weakened for nearly a year and a half, followed by famine, drought, and plague, it's hard not to think that so many reports from all over the world must be related.

Keys shows a keen grasp of both the written historical record from Asia, Africa, and Europe and the archaeological evidence from the Americas, and tells many tales of great havoc destroying old empires and laying the ground for new ones.Rome may have fallen, but Spain, England, and France rose in its place, while farther east, Japan and China each unified and gained strength after the chaos.Could an enormous volcanic eruption have had such influence on the world as a whole, and could the same thing happen tomorrow?Catastrophe makes no predictions, but leaves the reader with a new sense of history, nature, and destiny. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Reviews (45)

How Forces of Nature Shape Human History
"Catastrophe" refers to a mid-6th century climactic cataclysm that author David Keys believes destroyed the geopolitical status quo of late antiquity and gave birth to the protomodern era from which our current world circumstances derived. According to the hypothesis put forward in "Catastrophe", around the year 535 AD there occurred a major atmospheric disturbance that blocked out much of the Earth's sunlight all over the globe. Tree ring and ice-core evidence, as well as archeological and contemporary written accounts indicate that there was, indeed, severe climactic disruption at this time, and that it almost certainly was the result of a tremendous volcanic explosion. In "Catastrophe", David Keys describes the ways in which he believes the famine, drought and plague that resulted from this explosive event directly and indirectly led to the downfall of the contemporary political powers and the emergence of the new political entities and forces which shaped the world we live in today. As every continent was affected by the loss of sunlight, Keys hypothesizes that the fall of the Roman Empire, the emergence of Islam and the Arab and Ottoman Empires, the reshaping of Eastern Europe, the creation of the modern nations of Japan, China, and Korea in the East and the European powers in the West, the collapse of the great Mesoamerican Empire of Teotihuacan and the emergence of the Mayans, among other great shifts in power, were all indirect results of the climactic changes unleashed in 535 AD.

I find it unlikely that all of the developments that David Keys attributes to the "catastrophe" would not have occurred otherwise. While the direct consequences of a single event are predictable and substantiable, the indirect consequences of something are, of course, impossible to know for sure as there are other factors involved. How many of the developments which occurred in the centuries following the eruption of 535 AD would not have occurred, or would have occurred at a different time, or would have occurred by different means, if the climactic catastrophe had not set change in motion is impossible to say. But David Keys' point is well taken: "Forces of nature and other mechanisms" beyond human control have played -and may continue to play- a fundamental role in human history, culture, and achievements. "Catastrophe" reintroduces the concept of determinism to the discussion of human history, which has been unfashionable for a while now and is due for reconsideration by the academic community. Keys also gives the reader a nice overview of the transition from the order of late antiquity to that of protomodern nations all over the globe, which is interesting and informative regardless of what may have instigated the changes.

A New Explanation for the 535AD Catastrophe
That the Earth suffered catastrophic weather conditions starting around 535AD and lasting for many years thereafter, is becoming a scientifically accepted "fact." As explained in "Catastrophe: a Quest for the Origins of the Modern World," these conditions weakened the Eastern Roman Empire; created horrendous living conditions in the western part of Great Britain that were remembered and later incorporated into the Arthurian legend; contributed through drought in the America's to the fall of the Teotihuacan civilization in Mexico; and through flooding to the collapse of a major center of civilization in Yemen.

Almost wherever in the world that there was significant use of writing in the 6th century AD, from Constantinople to China, references to this catastrophe have shown up in contemporary documents. Many such documents are cited in this book. In the 20th century, the occurrence of the catastrophe and its worldwide impact has been confirmed by the analysis of ice-cores from Greenland and Antarctica and by the study of annual growth rings in wood from across the world that can be safely dated to the 6th century.

The author of "Catastrophe," David Keys, has a theory about the event - or closely related events - that caused of this catastrophe. I found his theory plausible and frightening. Plausible because of the way he lays out his facts, and frightening because there appears to be no reason such dramatic and devastating events could not happen occur again - in the next thousand years or in the next ten years.

Mr. Keys is an excellent writer. He certainly makes this book fully accessible to the non-scientist. He also is apparently quite well informed about both the historic and archeological record from around the world during the 6th century and for a long time afterwards. In fact, most of his book consists of plausible - usually directly climate related - explanations for all kinds of civilization collapses, barbarian migrations, and shifts in economic and political power in different parts of the world following the "event" of 535AD. These explanations are fascinating, and, as just mentioned, always plausible. On the other hand, I doubt that they can all be right, and wished that author had given a little more credit to happenstance and the decisions of individuals in shaping the "origins of the modern world."

Rethinking the Dark Ages and the Origins of the Modern World
"Catastrophe" rocketed to fame as a result of a PBS series which devoted two one hour episodes to its thesis: that an eruption of what was probably a monstrous earlier version of the volcano Krakatoa created weather disruptions and tidal phenomena which wiped out many Classical civilizations, brought on LITERAL "dark ages" in many societies, and helped to create the Medieval world and lay the foundations of the modern.

The Keys theory is so widely accepted now (just five years after the publication of the book) because it is not only backed by masses of contemporary documentary evidence, but also because it explains, better than any other theory, the global decline of civilization in the 6th Century of the Common Era. In mathematical terms, it is "elegant." It is a latter-day Occam's Razor cutting through generations of theories based upon individual cultures or isolated events to show that they could all have at their heart a single event which triggered, as the title says, global "Catastrophe." (Definitely with a capital "C"!)

Keys uses Chinese records to show that a loud bang was heard over hundreds of square miles around 535, and that this was followed by a fall of yellow ash. Other records, from Japan and parts of modern Indonesia, support this occurence. Keys, after weighing and rejecting alternative theories, suggests that only a massive volcanic eruption could be the culprit for the event recorded by the Chinese, and shows, decade by decade, using historical records, dendrochronological (tree ring) records, ice samples, and other measurements, that what happened was no ordinary eruption, but possibly the largest volcanic eruption in history, which darkened skies around the world, creating a "volcanic winter" which brought famine and plague in its wake. Amazingly, he does it in plain, easy-to-read language, a hallmark of historiographic greatness.

Keys documents major climatic disruptions and uses established scientific models to project the impact of these changes on people as diverse as the Central Asian Avar and Turkish horse nomads, East African herdsmen, South American fishermen, and Anglo-Saxon and Britannic farmers in the modern British Isles. His conclusion is stunning: the eruption triggered waves of nomadic migrations which helped to bring about the decline of the recently revived Byzantine empire (which was well on its way to reconquering much of the old Roman Empire), destroyed flourishing urban cultures in the Americas, ruined the powerful Southern Arabian kingdoms which had existed for centuries (thus creating the power vacuum later filled by Mohammad's follwers), and also wrought devastation remembered in Arthurian romances.

One of the crucial contributions which Keys has made is an explanation of the otherwise unexplainable irruption of the bubonic plague out of Africa and into the Byzantine and Indian worlds. The plague -- which spread as far as Britain and permanently ended any chance that an independent Celtic Church would be established, separate from Rome -- killed millions of then and former Romaions (inhabitants of the original Roman Empire) and blasted any hopes of re-establishing the Empire, relegating it instead into an ever-dwindling Greek-centered Eastern Empire, subject to nomadic incursions from Arabia and central Asia.

In the Americas, Teotihuacan and Tikal alike suffered from near-simultaneous climatic disruption which ended their civilizations -- contemporaneously with the decline of the great cities of the Classical Eurasian world. Only the Keys Catastrophe theory explains BOTH phenomena -- the end of urban cultures in the Americas AND in Africa-Eurasia.

In east Asia, Keys blames the super-eruption for the famines whch led to the revolt of Hou Jing, which ended southern Chinese independence and led ultimately to the establishment of the Sui Dynasty and the near-continuous unification of China as a single cultural entity since then. In 535, the very year which Keys gives for the eruption, the Korean state of Silla, probably faced with climatic turmoil and famine as bad as China's, abandoned its pagan past and adopted Buddhism, laying the groundwork for the unification of THAT country, too. Again, no other theory provides a unified explanation for the near-simultaneous events.

The Keys theory is not without its weaknesses. I have particular doubts about the Indonesian chronicles which he utilizes, but which, if authentic, indicate that the Sunda Strait is a relatively modern phenomenon, and, until 535-536, Java and Sumatra formed a super-island, dominated by an unfortuante civlization (called Holotan by the Chinese). If the records Keys uses are correct, Holotan was destroyed (along with much of the island) by the super-eruption, putting it alongside Thera as a major cultural center destroyed by a single volcano. Undeniably, however, major changes took place in Southeast Asia after 535, including the establishment of Proto-Cambodia and Proto-Thailand only one generation later, along with other, more diffuse civilizations, presumably filling the gap left by the vanished Holotan.

The Keys theory will likely be subject to much criticism in the years ahead, and further refinements, but it is already so well-established as a convenient explanation for the catastrophic events of the Sixth Century C.E. that anyone who wants to understand histories of the period being written nowadays simply MUST be familiar with "Catastrophe."

I give "Catastrophe" Five Stars, the highest rating, for its historiographic significance, ease of reading, and current impact on historical thinking.

A fascinating historical detective story
Recent years have seen the publication of several books offering radical new explanations of ancient events or presenting sweeping revisionist theories of history. Examples include Noah's Flood, Eden in the East, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, and 1421: The Year China Discovered America.

Catastrophe is one of the best of these. Archaeological writer David Keys has assembled multiple arguments supporting his theory that a major natural disaster around the year 535 altered the world's climate for years, causing famine and plague and triggering the collapse of existing political systems. He gives us brief but well-written summaries of events that sprang from this catastrophe, including the rise of Islam. According to Keys, this event ended an old world and gave birth to a new one whose patterns we still see today. After a process of elimination, Keys proposes that the cause of this disaster was a volcano in what is now the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. He warns that natural catastrophes in the future could change the world we know. Even if you don't agree with his conclusion, you will learn much from his reviews of historical events. This is fascinating stuff, and highly readable.

Not Catastrophic....But a Little Suspect in Places
Catastrophe, by David Keys, is an effort to attribute several significant changes in history that occurred in or near the 6th Centuary AD to drastic global weather changes, and to attribute those changes to a volcanic eruption. Keys ammasses an enormous amount of evidence to support these attributions, enough by itself to make the work impressive. However, on the whole his trail of evidence is a bit suspect.

Keys offers ample convincing evidence that the 6th century AD saw startling changes in weather. In doing so, he presents data from literally around the globe; moreover, his various sources of information seem to corroborate one another. This represents the most solid part of his argument, although he didn't tell us if he omitted evidence that didn't support his conclusions. From here, Keys proceeds to suggest what affects this weather pattern may have had on the world.

Some of these suggestions are more believable than others. His attribution of plague outbreaks to the weather patterns seems reasonable. Similarly a discussion of impacts on the Roman Empire is well argued and somewhat supported. From there, though, Keys trots about the globe presenting marginal evidence that most of the major events of the 6th Century (and some thereafter) are directly attributable to this weather pattern. In doing so, Keys includes a lot of marginal evidence and reaches for some causal relationships that are probably a lot more complicated than his book suggests. In particular, I found his version of events in the Middle East, Europe and China not so well supported.

I was a little bothered by the language and evidence of some of these chapters. Frequently, Keys uses phrases such as "almost certainly" to describe a cause-and-effect relationship, without providing any real supporting evidence. In one place, his endnote to such a comment simply repeats the "almost certainly" phrase without offering any additional information or citing a source. I think this fact really weakens the credibility of his work.

As he moves toward the end, Keys tries to pinpoint the source of the weather patterns. Toward this end, he nominates the eruption of a volcano in Java. However, in doing so, he needs to significantly re-interpret Javan historical accounts based on second and third hand sources. And while there's some limited basis for doing so, the connection is, from my point of view, far from a slam-dunk. It's easy to see that Keys left this section for the end because it's the least supported part of his chain of argument and potentially unravels the whole thesis.

On the whole, the book is an impressive projection of a lot of focused research. Sadly a lot of the evidence presented is weak in supporting Keys premise. In the end, it's easy for the reader to see that some, perhaps even a lot, of the things that Keys suggests caused major historical changes are credible. Still, a lot aren't. I give the book three stars for pulling together and presenting this information, which is in itself an impressive feat. Keys is not convincing in telling us that a volcanic eruption in 535 AD rewrote most of human history from that point on, however. Other than that, the book is interesting and fairly readable, and worth the time to take a look. ... Read more

Book Description

The latest edition of the classic book grounded in the fundamentals. It introduces heating, ventilation, and air conditioning starting with basic principles of engineering leading to the latest HVAC design practice. Its engineering approach emphasizes fundamentals and realistic applications.Acknowledging numerous approaches to all engineering problems, the book presents alternate approaches and describes why some approaches work best in specific applications and what compromises are made using each of them. Provides carefully worked examples with step-by-step solutions listing assumptions, reference equations, and supporting material. Incorporates a careful use of easy-to-follow units and conversion factors providing basic mass and energy balances. The third edition of Thermal Environmental Engineering has been updated to reflect current approaches as well as new chapters on energy estimation, air handling system design, and piping system design. Discusses new replacement refrigerants as well as environmental issues. Presents single and multiple zone psychronetric systems; moisture transport in building structures; and the latest topics on indoor air quality and human comfort.An essential reference book for professional mechanical engineers. ... Read more

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Fair
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Reviews (4)

astonishing
I go to Harvard law school and I have found this book to be helpful in my field of study. Although i also study criminal justice law I have now become interested in environmental and this book has been impressive. This book is a life saver. It was classy and sophisticated. Please go buy this and I hope to see some new challenging faces at Harvard. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

This is an outstanding book.
I've used this book in two seated classes and one online course on environmental law. If you want a glorified HAZMAT course or have decided that the way our legal system actually operates doesn't matter, then look elsewhere. This is not a science book (nor should it be). If you want a text that students find easy to read and that provides comprehensive coverage of environmental law and our legal system, this is your book.

An Outstanding Book!
I've used "Environmental Law" by Nancy K Kubasek and Gary S. Silverman in two seated classes and one online course. It is an outstanding text for describing the parameters of our legal system to students. Those to want a glorified HAZMAT approach to environmental law (or want to ignore the legal system) might not like the book. I love it.

Limited value
The author of this books is an attorney who does a fairly good job with the big picture but not very well with the science. If you're only looking for a quick study of the structure of environmental law in the U.S., which is about one-third of this book, it's readable and informative. It also uses language and structure that's accessible for advanced high school and lower division college students in giving and overview of the U.S. legal and regulatory system for the environment. The author creates a good historical context for these discussions. However, the book begins to lose its polish when the author ventures into discussions of the science behind the law. I noted several points where the presentation of the science was clearly poorly informed (ozone and global warming, nuclear and alternative engery). If you're only looking for an general introduction to environmenal law, this book will get you started. But, if you want to get a good idea of the science that drives environmental law, keep looking. ... Read more

Book Description

Quantitative modeling methods have become a central tool in the management of harvested fish populations. This book examines how these modeling methods work, why they sometimes fail, and how they might be improved by incorporating larger ecological interactions. Fisheries Ecology and Management provides a broad introduction to the concepts and quantitative models needed to successfully manage fisheries.

Walters and Martell develop models that account for key ecological dynamics such as trophic interactions, food webs, multi-species dynamics, risk-avoidance behavior, habitat selection and density-dependence. They treat fisheries policy development as a two-stage process, first identifying strategies for varying harvest in relation to changes in abundance, then finding ways to implement such strategies in terms of monitoring and regulatory procedures. This book provides a general framework for developing assessment models in terms of state-observation dynamics hypotheses, and points out that most fisheries assessment failures have been due to inappropriate observation model hypotheses rather than faulty models for ecological dynamics.

Intended as a text in upper division and graduate classes on fisheries assessment and management, this useful guide will also be widely read by ecologists and fisheries scientists.

... Read more