Product Description

Our planet exists within a space environment affected by constantly changing solar atmosphere producing cosmic particles and electromagnetic waves. This "space weather" profoundly influences the performance of our technology because we primarily use two means for transmitting information and energy; namely, electromagnetic waves and electricity. On an everyday basis, we have developed methods to cope with the normal conditions. However, the sun remains a fiery star whose 'angry' outbursts can potentially destroy spacecrafts, kill astronauts, melt electricity transformers, stop trains, and generally wreak havoc with human activities. Space Weather is the developing field within astronomy that aims at predicting the sun’s violent activity and minimizing the impacts on our daily lives. Space Weather, Environment, and Societies explains why our technological societies are so dependent on solar activity and how the Sun disturbs the transmission of information and energy. Footnotes expand specific points and the appendices facilitate a more thorough command of the physics involved.

Product Description

Variations in solar activity, as revealed by variations in the number of sunspots, have been observed since ancient times. To what extent changes in the solar output may affect planetary climates, though, remains today more than ever a subject of controversy. In 2000, the SSSI volume on Solar Variability and Climate reviewed the to-date understanding of the physics of solar variability and of the associated climate response. The present volume on Solar Variability and Planetary Climates provides an overview of recent advances in this field, with particular focus at the Earth's middle and lower atmosphere. The book structure mirrors that of the ISSI workshop held in Bern in June 2005, the collection of invited workshop contributions and of complementary introductory papers synthesizing the current understanding in key research areas such as middle atmospheric processes, stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling, tropospheric aerosols chemistry, solar storm influences, solar variability physics, and terrestrial climate analogues.

Product Description
Pirate treasure hunters Captain Tosca, Needlespune, Dogzboddi and Coleslaw have returned but this time the treasure is guarded by the dreaded monster of Malswomp who will think nothing of gobbling up the crew of the Sleepy Sheep for breakfast! There is only one way past the monster and a clue has been hidden on jigsaw pieces hidden all over the planet. The pirates must identify the correct docking pod, read a metro map, and navigate their way around the dark and dangerous sewers. But is that Silverina Slyce and her band of Spaceway Men lurking around every turn? With rickety walkways, weird and wonderful creatures and all sorts of different areas to explore, map reading has never been so much fun. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scoular is a huge hit w/both my boys
Scoular Anderson is a very creative author/illustrator. My oldest son received "MacPelican" as a gift and we've since tried to buy every Scoular Anderson book we can get our hands on in the US. These map reading books are great. They are fascinating and both my boys adore them.
You really can't go wrong, especially wiht boys. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Long ago, people explained the mysteries of the Sun with stories. Today, we send spacecrafts to the Sun to find out how it shines. Part of the Starting with Space series, this book explains the science behind the mysteries of the Sun. Each chapter opens with a story, and then goes on to answer a child's most common questions about the Sun in an easy-to-understand way. Readers will learn how to simulate an eclipse and how to make a sundial. These and many other "Try It" activities and experiments can be done with materials found around the home and classroom. This unique combination of facts, folklore, simple experiments and hands-on activities meets the research needs of 7 to 11 year olds and gives kids lots of accessible information about the Sun. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

This is a childrens book
This book is nice and informative but please be aware that it is aimed at 6-8 year olds.It is a childrens book.It does have very large print but it is a flimsy and a very thin paperback.

Another "star" by Seymour Simon
My teacher has many Seymour Simon books in the classroom and all of them are great.I am a fifth grader, and a good reader of fiction but nonfiction has always been a struggle for me.But this book, and others by the same author, have kept me interested.I've learned a lot and I wish we could use these books instead of textbooks.

My Budding Astronauts Favorite Author
My 5 year old absolutely loves all of the books he has by Mr. Simon.

The pictures are outstanding and the wording is such, even he can understand, and grasp the concept Mr. Simon is trying to get across, as we read it to him. He is even now, picking up these books, and reading them himself, as best he can.

Any author that can capture and keep your child's attention and spur them on to learn more and inspire their desire to read, deserves nothing but the highest score. I regret I can only go as high as five, on rating this item and author. ... Read more

Product Description
This book introduces the general field of Sun-weather/climate relationships, that is, apparent weather and climate responses to solar activity, and provides theoretical and experimental suggestions for further research to identify and investigate the unknown causal mechanisms.It is directed to researchers active in the atmospheric and space sciences who wish to expand their background for meeting the challenge of this newly emerging field and to students who desire a general background in the several disciplinary areas of the field. In the 200-year history of Sun-weather studies, a large body of information has accumulated.Even though the reported results have sometimes been confused, disjointed, and contradictory, there has emerged a growing belief that there are connections between changes on the Sun and changes in the lower atmosphere.There is, however, a deplorable lack of acceptable physical mechanisms to explain those probable connections, and this has prevented widespread acceptance of the reality of solar activity effects on the weather and climate.The discovery of viable mechanisms will strengthen the scientific basis of Sun-weather relationships and may lead to improved predictions of weather and climate.It is obvious that improved predictions would have a profound impact on several crucial societal problems, especially in the areas of global food production and utilization of solar energy for man's needs. This book reviews the correlations between solar activity and weather and climate reported in historical and contemporary literature, addresses the physical linking mechanisms, and suggests experimental concepts for future investigations of such mechanisms.It is our intention to fill a gap in the literature by combining a review of the nature and quality of existing correlations with the basic physics underlying the various scientific disciplines required to pursue studies of physical linking mechanisms.We emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of the subject while providing a basic background in each of the various areas thought to play a role in coupling processes.In following this approach, we hope to acquaint meteorologists with solar and geophysical phenomena, solar physicists with terrestrial atmospheric processes, and so on, thereby stimulating the cross fertilization we believe is necessary for further progress in Sun-weather studies. ... Read more

Product Description

A NASA space scientist maps out the coming solar cycle -- and its catastrophic potential to disrupt worldwide power and communications systems. He includes a history of the record of auroral sightings, accounts of communications blackouts from the 20th century, industries sensitive to solar storms, and radiation and health issues.

Customer Reviews (5)

Potentially useful book ruined by poor writing or editing style.
For me, this book died during its Prologue. After a couple of pages, I started noticing more and more instances of poor grammar. From then on, until I tossed the book aside at the end of Chapter 2, I was constantly distracted by grammar issues to the point where they caused me to steadily lose interest in any technical merit the book may have.

The author mentions his website [...] as a place to find related information, and to contact the author. However, he has abandoned this URL, and a "For Sale" page is now displayed. Nice.

Although I am only an interested amateur in the subject matter covered in this book, I served as a Senior Technical Editor for McGraw-Hill, Inc. for over ten years, and therefore feel qualified to express my above opinion.

Not what I expected, but not bad
When I saw the title of this book, I had images of butterfly diagrams, an adequate amount of astrophysics and space physics, etc. However, the book's subtitle, "Learning to Live with a Stormy Star" was a much better clue as to the book's contents. Although some stellar/space science is briefly discussed, the main theme of the book is centered on sociological hardships, financial losses, research budgets, business interests, etc., all pertaining to our periodically stormy sun. Especially highlighted are: the survival of expensive satellites in space during less than ideal space weather, the sociological effects of their loss and the effects of this weather on power grids on earth. But my unfulfilled expectations and resulting disappointment should not result in a poor rating for this book. It is well written, very informative and seems to thoroughly cover, I think, what it was apparently intended to cover - hence my rating of 4 stars.

Vital, but strangely incomplete
I am recommending this book to everyone. I am quite convinced by Odenwald's data and studies I have encountered prior to this epochal book that our goverments need to take seriously what the good doctor is warning us about. The threat of unprecedented super-solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections from our unsteady star, ones that could blank out power-grids, destroy communications satellites and possibly fry increasingly vunerable microchips is something every thinking person should consider.
Nevertheless, despite the five star rating I gave, I was appalled at the meager three-page index, the (in a few places) inaccurate bibliographyand the many errata, typoes and copy-edit mistakes in the text.Everyone who buys or reads this book needs to heed this caveat and go to the website; and there are useful updates as well.
Nonetheless, I see the need for urgency in rushing it into press, but do not see why a Ph.D (who probably finds his lay contacts amusing) and a respected publisher like Columbia University Press would allow errors that are usually -- allegedly -- reserved for the much reviled and controversial Print On Demand books. I urge Dr. Odenwald and his publisher to provide us with a revised edition (with, important material to make the 23rd Cycle even a greater book and more complete than it currently is) as soon as feasible.

Good introduction for general science readers
Interesting topic, though I judged the coverage to be uneven. Readers wanting an update about solar physics will be disappointed by a lack of details; but this can be supplemented by a visit to NASA’s solar physics Web pages.... Policy-makers should be impressed by the real and potential economic fallout from massive solar plasma discharges; but some of Odenwald’s detailed examples illustrate a coincidental rather than true cause-and-effect relation of solar events to Earth-based calamities. The Exon Valdez disaster is discussed at length before being dismissed, and is referenced later. Several pages detail inconveniences due to a power blackout in the D.C. area which had nothing to do with unusual solar activity. I found these references obtuse — I would have greatly preferred to see more information about the sun.

Still, the book’s final chapter is particularly illuminating, detailing current activities and difficulties for space weather researchers seeking project funding in competition with higher profile but much less utilitarian activities such as cosmology. This is followed by several interesting “notes” which provide a few more details about certain chapter topics. The last few pages quote astronomers describing stars seemingly similar to our sun which periodically emit massively greater plasma discharges, enough to literally fry our little world in an instant. Why is our sun different? This is really getting interesting! You turn the page, and that’s it — end of story.

Odenwald’s intent is to increase awareness about real and potential economic and personal safety issues related to variable solar activity. His book serves as a useful starting point for interested general science readers. Those seeking in-depth coverage of this topic will need to look elsewhere, starting with papers and documents listed in the lengthy bibliography.

Interesting Book About Our Sun and its Effect on Earth
If I could give this book three and a half stars I would, but since I think some people could find it more interesting than I did, I gave it four starts.

This book describes the sun's eleven-year cycle of highs and lows in sun spot activity.While the mechanism, which produces these sun spots, is not well understand, what well known is that the sun produces vast amounts of high energy particles (radiation), both continuously and in bursts which ultimately affects the Earth's magnetic field and life on Earth.The book focused on how past solar magnetic storms have affected the power grid system and the geostationary satellites.Finally, the author makes some predictions on the upcoming solar maximum in the year 2001 and its potential for life on Earth.I should point out that the author is an astronomer and makes his predictions based on data and past experiences and not is some doomsayer trying to make a quick buck.

There are also several extremely interesting chapters on the effects of solar magnetic storms on the modern day life.One chapter shows that in 1989, a solar magnetic storm shut down a good portion of the Canadian electrical power grid, leaving some people without power for several days.The chapter on the effects of radiation on the human body was very enlightening.For example, this chapter shows that living in high altitude location like Denver was similar to receiving several chest X-rays a year.Also, radiation from cosmic sources was significantly greater than that received from living next to a nuclear power plant.

One area that was overlooked in this was the effect of sun spot activity on global warming or cooling.It is well known that a mini ice age that occurred several centuries ago coincided with a lack of sun spot activity. ... Read more

Product Description
These colorful, interactive quiz books provide questions and answers on everything from exotic wild animals to everyday household items, from far away people and places to plants and insects in children's backyards. The unique stand-up format allows children to challenge one another to a game of wits or to test their knowledge on their own. Kids will have fun while learning about the world around them through questions of a variety of skill levels. Vibrant illustrations ensure that the facts will come to life for children as they flip through these educational quizzes. ... Read more