Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards
February 2013, Wiley-Blackwell
Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards provides a valuable new insight into how climate change is able to influence, modulate and trigger geological and geomorphological phenomena, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and landslides; ultimately increasing the risk of natural hazards in a warmer world. Taken together, the chapters build a panorama of a field of research that is only now becoming recognized as important in the context of the likely impacts and implications of anthropogenic climate change. The observations, analyses and interpretations presented in the volume reinforce the idea that a changing climate does not simply involve the atmosphere and hydrosphere, but also elicits potentially hazardous responses from the solid Earth, or geosphere.
Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards is targeted particularly at academics, graduate students and professionals with an interest in environmental change and natural hazards. As such, we are hopeful that it will encourage further investigation of those mechanisms by which contemporary climate change may drive potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity, and of the future ramifications for society and economy.
List of Contributors
Bill McGuire and Mark Maslin
Chapter 1: Hazardous responses of the solid Earth to a changing climate
Chapter 2: Future climate changes in the context of geological and geomorphological hazards
Felicity Liggins, Richard Betts and Bill McGuire
Chapter 3: Climate change and collapsing volcanoes: evidence from Mount Etna, Sicily
Kim Deeming, Bill McGuire and Paul Harrop
Chapter 4: Melting ice and volcanic hazards in the twenty-first century
Chapter 5: Multiple effects of ice load changes and associated stress change on magmatic systems
Freysteinn Sigmundsson and others
Chapter 6: Response of faults to climate-driven changes in ice and water volumes at the surface of the Earth
Andrea Hampel, Ralf Hetzel and Georgios Maniatis
Chapter 7: Does the El-Niño – Southern Oscillation and influence earthquake activity in the eastern tropical Pacific?
Serge Guillas, Simon Day and Bill McGuire
Chapter 8: Submarine landslides and tsunamis in a changing climate
Chapter 9: Heat waves and slope stability in high mountain terrain
Christian Huggel and others
Chapter 10: Impacts of recent and future climate change on natural hazards in the European Alps
Jasper Knight, Margreth Keiler and Stephan Harrison
Chapter 11: Assessing the past and future stability of global gas hydrate reservoirs
Mark Maslin, Matthew Owen, Richard Betts, Simon Day, Tom Dunkley Jones and Andrew Ridgwell
Chapter 12: Methane hydrate instability: a view from the Palaeogene
Tom Dunkley Jones, Andrew Ridgwell, D. J. Lunt, Mark Maslin, D. N. Schmidt and Paul Valdez
Bill McGuire is Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London. In 2005 he was a member of the UK Government's Natural Hazards Working Group, established in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and in 2010 was part of the Government Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, set up to address the ash problem associated with the Icelandic Eyjafjallajökull eruption. He is a contributing author of the 2012 IPCC report on climate change and extreme events.
Mark Maslin is Professor of Palaeoclimatology and Climate Change at University College London. He is a leading scientist with particular expertise in past and future global and regional climatic change and has published over 120 papers in journals such as Science, Nature, and Geology. He is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Scholar and currently holds a Royal Society Industrial Fellowship.
"Overall, this publication should be on the bookshelf of geologists, physical geographers, hydrologists, ecologists, environmental scientists, politicians, and anyone interested or involved in climate change. The wealth of concise information makes it an excellent reference for teaching the interdisciplinary aspects of environmental science and climate change." (Int. J. Environment and Pollution, 1 October 2013)
“Further, this book convincingly demonstrates the need for greater inclusion of the geoscience research community in discussions on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction planning.” (Geological Journal, 25 February 2014)
“I heartily recommend this book. We all have a stake in surviving climate change.” (International Journal of Environmental Studies, 20July 2013)
"There is useful and interesting material in the book, very much worthy of attention…” (Geology Today, 1 May 2013)
It is only relatively recently that geoscientists have begun to consider how the Earth's crustal systems will respond to the rapid climate change that is expected in the next century.
Wiley is pleased to announce the publication of Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards, the most up-to-date resource on this new and fast-moving subject.
The book addresses a wide range of issues relating to the ways in which climate change may force geological and geomorphological hazards. The Chapters reflect an interdisciplinary field of research that is only now becoming recognized as important in the context of the likely impacts and implications of anthropogenic climate change.
Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards combines fully updated and revised papers resulting from a colloquium hosted by the Royal Society in 2009, with new material that fills in some of the less well covered or absent discussions in the original meeting.