Understanding The North Sea System

The continental shelf seas have an importance which is out of proportion to the rela tively small fraction of the area of the global ocean which they occupy. These shallow seas play an important role as the high energy boundary zones of the deep ocean where much of the ocean's tidal and wave energies are dissipated. They are highly productive biologically and are responsible for most of the world's fishery production. In many cases, they are also sources of economically important resources, notably hydrocarbons and they are frequently important as thorough fares for merchant shipping. Because they are the regions of the ocean closest to our centres of population and industrial activity, they have been the first to feel the impact of the increasing pressures imposed by large scale waste disposal into the ocean. The North Sea is an archetypal representative of such seas: we need to be able to understand its processes and predict them if we are to achieve a degree of rational management in the future, as the environmental threats increase. The understanding required extends through a wide range of processes that operate in the shelf seas from the fundamental physics to the chemistry and biology of the water column and the seabed sediments. These processes, and the interactions between them, cut across the traditional discipline boundaries within marine science and require a substantial inter disciplinary effort for their effective study.

The North Sea System for Petroleum Production unpacks the variation in state intervention in offshore petroleum activities on the British and Norwegian continental shelves. This astute book also examines the causes of various policy convergences and divergences.

This book offers an up-to-date review of our current understanding of climate change in the North Sea and adjacent areas, as well as its impact on ecosystems and socio-economic sectors. It provides a detailed assessment of climate change based on published scientific work compiled by independent international experts from climate-related disciplines such as oceanography, atmospheric sciences, marine and terrestrial ecology, using a regional evaluation and review process similar to that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of our changing climate, discussing a wide range of topics including past, current and future climate change, and climate-related changes in marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. It also explores the impact of climate change on socio-economic sectors such as fisheries, agriculture, coastal zone management, coastal protection, urban climate, recreation/tourism, offshore activities/energy, and air pollution.

This volume contains the proceedings of the International Sym posium on North Sea Dynamics which was held in Hamburg, August 31 - September 4, 1981. More than 150 participants from 10 coun tries were present at the Symposium. Of the 58 lectures given, 45 are printed in this book. The manuscripts were reviewed by an international advisory board. The main goal of the organizers was to bring together as many active researchers as possible in this very general field of North Sea dynarnics, transcending the boundaries of the countries and the various disciplines involved, in order to discuss the main problems and future trends. In the ten years since the last comparable meeting in Aviemore, Scotland, several large interna tional experiments (JONSDAP '73 and '76, JONSWAP '73, '75 and '77, MARSEN '79) and new developments in modelling promised a rewarding exchange of ideas. In addition to the physical disci plines, biologists and geologists are increasingly able to pre sent quantitative analyses.

In this publication you will find a comprehensive data set of the North Sea ecosystem, including the distribution and the fate of contaminants, their transport paths and their analysis by means of numerical models. This book presents the results of the interdisciplinary German research project ZISCH ('Zirkulation und Schadstoffumsatz in der Nordsee') encompassing oceanographers, meteorologists, marine biologists and chemists.

This work provides a wide perspective of the oceans by examining their places in the earth sciences, drawing together all the key strands of ocean study and presenting a holistic view of ocean processes, ancient and modern.

Twenty years on from the first edition of Pollution and the topic remains high in the public awareness. Environmental pollution is now a major area of research, consultancy and technological development and is a priority for the political agendas of both the developed and developing worlds. The fifth edition of this book is fully updated, and includes an entirely new chapter on Climate Change, presenting an authoritative view on this topic. Chapters in fast moving areas have been completely revised and several newcomers have joined the original set of authors. This popular book has proved invaluable as a teaching resource for two decades and is frequently used as a reference by practitioners in the field. Readers of earlier editions will benefit from updates on technologies such as nanoscience, and the legislative changes that have occurred since the fourth edition in 2001.