Environmental Physics E-Book

Egbert Boeker

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 892

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

This thoroughly revised and updated third edition focuses on the utilization of sustainable energy and mitigating climate change, serving as an introduction to physics in the context of societal problems. A distinguishing feature of the text is the discussion of spectroscopy and spectroscopic methods as a crucial means to quantitatively analyze and monitor the condition of the environment, the factors determining climate change, and all aspects of energy conversion.

This textbook will be invaluable to students in physics and related subjects, and supplementary materials are available on a companion website: http://www.nat.vu.nl/environmentalphysics
Instructor support material is available at: http://booksupport.wiley.com

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 A Sustainable Energy Supply

1.2 The Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change

1.3 Light Absorption in Nature as a Source of Energy

1.4 The Contribution of Science: Understanding, Modelling and Monitoring

Chapter 2: Light and Matter

2.1 The Solar Spectrum

2.2 Interaction of Light with Matter

2.3 Ultraviolet Light and Biomolecules

Chapter 3: Climate and Climate Change

3.1 The Vertical Structure of the Atmosphere

3.2 The Radiation Balance and the Greenhouse Effect

3.3 Dynamics in the Climate System

3.4 Natural Climate Variability

3.5 Modelling Human-Induced Climate Change

3.6 Analyses of IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

3.7 Forecasts of Climate Change

Chapter 4: Heat Engines

4.1 Heat Transfer and Storage

4.2 Principles of Thermodynamics

4.3 Idealized Cycles

4.4 Electricity as Energy Carrier

4.5 Pollution from Heat Engines

4.6 The Private Car

4.7 Economics of Energy Conversion

Chapter 5: Renewable Energy

5.1 Electricity from the Sun

5.2 Energy from the Wind

5.3 Energy from the Water

5.4 Bio Energy

5.5 Physics of Photosynthesis

5.6 Organic Photocells: the Grätzel Cell

5.7 Bio Solar Energy

Chapter 6: Nuclear Power

6.1 Nuclear Fission

6.2 Nuclear Fusion

6.3 Radiation and Health

6.4 Managing the Fuel Cycle

6.5 Fourth Generation Nuclear Reactors

Chapter 7: Dispersion of Pollutants

7.1 Diffusion

7.2 Dispersion in Rivers

7.3 Dispersion in Groundwater

7.4 Mathematics of Fluid Dynamics

7.5 Gaussian Plumes in the Air

7.6 Turbulent Jets and Plumes

Chapter 8: Monitoring with Light

8.1 Overview of Spectroscopy

8.2 Atomic Spectra

8.3 Molecular Spectra

8.4 Scattering

8.5 Remote Sensing by Satellites

8.6 Remote Sensing by Lidar

Chapter 9: The Context of Society

9.1 Using Energy Resources

9.2 Fresh Water

9.3 Risks

9.4 International Efforts

9.5 Global Environmental Management

9.6 Science and Society

Appendix A: Physical and Numerical Constants

Appendix B: Vector Algebra

B.1 Vectors: Definition and Properties

B.2 The Vector Field

Appendix C: Gauss, Delta and Error Functions

Appendix D: Experiments in a Student's Lab

D.1 Determine the Hydraulic Conductivity of Soil

D.2 Determine the Thermal Conductivity of Sand

D.3 Heat Transfer by Radiation and Convection

D.4 Laser Doppler Anemometry

D.5 Radon in the Environment

D.6 Laser Remote Sensing

Appendix E: Web Sites

E.1 General

E.2 Climate (Chapter 3)

E.3 Traditional Energy (Chapter 4)

E.4 Renewable Energy (Chapter 5)

E.5 Nuclear Power (Chapter 6)

E.6 The Social Context (Chapter 9)

Appendix F: Omitted Parts of the Second Edition

Color Plate

Index

This edition first published 2011 © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boeker, Egbert. Environmental physics : sustainable energy and climate change / Egbert Boeker and Rienk van Grondelle. – 3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-66675-3 (cloth) – ISBN 978-0-470-66676-0 (pbk.) 1. Environmental sciences. 2. Physics. 3. Atmospheric physics. I. Grondelle, Rienk van. II. Title. GE105.B64 2011 628–dc22 2011011525

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Print ISBN: Cloth 978-0-470-66675-3, Paper 978-0-470-66676-0

ePDF ISBN: 978-1-119-97418-5

oBook ISBN: 978-1-119-97417-8

ePub ISBN: 978-1-119-97519-9

Mobi ISBN: 978-1-119-97520-5

Preface

This third edition of the textbook ‘Environmental Physics’ has been thoroughly revised to give more focus on sustainable energy and climate change. As fossil fuels and nuclear power will be with us for many years to come, the physical and environmental aspects of these ways of energy conversion are given ample attention as well.

The textbook is suitable for second year students in physics and related subjects as physical chemistry and geophysics. It assumes a basic knowledge in physics and mathematics, but all equations are derived from first principles and explained in a physical way. Therefore the book may serve as an introduction to physics in the context of societal problems like energy supply, pollution, climate change and finite resources of fossil fuels and uranium. Even where parts of the text will be familiar from other courses it is advisable to read those parts in order to grasp the way the material is presented here.

At some places we included parts that may be too ‘heavy’ for most second year students, but will not easily be found in the literature. They will be suitable for the final undergraduate year or for a Master course. They are indicated by at the beginning and with at the end. Usually we will indicate them in the introductory lines of each section as well.

As in any text, later chapters refer to concepts and properties discussed in earlier chapters. But the book is written such that the reader may read any chapter on its own. Therefore the teacher may select a few chapters as a module or for background reading.

A distinguishing feature of the text is the discussion of spectroscopy and spectroscopic methods, again from basic concepts, as a crucial means to quantitatively analyze and monitor the condition of the environment, the factors determining climate change and all aspects of energy conversion.

The emphasis in the book is on physics, on the concepts and principles that help in understanding the ways to produce energy efficiently or to mitigate climate change. Extra attention is given to photosynthesis, not only because of its importance in the field of renewable energy, but also because a comprehensive physics approach is lacking in the literature.

With regard to international treaties and conventions, we discuss the most important one for the subject matter of this book: the climate convention (Chapter 9) and more briefly the non-proliferation treaty (Chapter 6). The actual political situation is heavily influenced by the internal situation in major actors like the United States, Russia and China. That may change rapidly. As the need for a guaranteed energy supply is a constant in international relations, this book should give the reader enough background to judge the policy which his or her country is putting forward.

The structure of the book follows its emphasis. After an introduction, solar radiation is discussed as the input for most of the renewable energies (Chapter 2), next the factors influencing climate change (Chapter 3), then energy from fossil fuels with an excursion to the private car (Chapter 4) and renewable energy (Chapter 5). Because of its importance and the ongoing discussion of safety we have devoted a separate chapter to nuclear power (Chapter 6). Most if not all ways of energy conversion produce pollution as an inevitable side effect; therefore we discuss transport of pollutants in Chapter 7, albeit less detailed than in the second edition of this book. Monitoring is the subject of Chapter 8 and, finally, in Chapter 9 the social aspects are discussed. In the Appendices some helpful information is compiled.

The changed emphasis of this third edition results in many new sections and paragraphs and the omission or condensing of several sections of the earlier editions. For the interested reader these parts of the second edition may be downloaded free of charge from the website http://www.few.vu.nl/environmentalphysics. From this website also a description of environmental experiments for a student’s lab may be downloaded, described briefly in Appendix D. The site also contains a few computer codes that will illuminate some points made in the text. Finally, any mistakes or omissions we discover will be put on the site as well.

Almost all equations in this book will be derived from first principles. After a, perhaps lengthy, derivation we often analyze the resulting formula by looking at the units on both sides of the equality sign (=). This provides more physical insight than comparing dimensions length, mass and time only. This same procedure was followed in the authors’ book ‘Environmental Science, Physical Principles and Applications’ which is meant for a general science readership; there it worked very well. For clarity, units are given between square brackets [ ]; also dimensions are given between these brackets. In practice no confusion will arise.

Finally we mention some practical points. References are given between square brackets [ ] and printed at the end of each chapter. Also exercises are put there and for teachers the publisher has a teachers’ manual available with the worked out solutions. In the final chapter ‘social questions’ ask for a considered opinion of the student. The student of course is entitled to have his or her own opinion, so there is no ‘right’ answer. But the arguments should be physically sound. In the teacher’s manual some arguments on a certain statement will be given, without the pretention to present the ultimate truth.

Amsterdam, 20 January 2011

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge help and suggestion as follows:

Chapter 2: Dr Annemarie Huijser for her contribution on melanins.

Chapter 3: Dr Schuurmans for his suggestions on the first edition of the book and for suggesting table 3.5. The authors are indebted to Dr Aad van Ulden for his suggestions; dr Rob van Dorland has provided a simple model for radiative transfer, discussed in Sect. 3.2.2 which is grateful acknowledged. IPCC staff kindly provided us with high resolution versions of Plates 1 and 2.

Chapter 4: Dr Andriesse for pointing out the real heat engine of Sect. 4.2.3

Chapter 5: Dr Jo Hermans for suggesting an alternative explanation for the Lift force in Sect. 5.2.2. We are grateful to Drs Barzda, Cisek, Roszak, Nield, Nelson, Schulten, Magnuson, Cogdell, T. Moore, Dekker, Boekema, Novoderezhkin and Hambourger for providing us with high resolution pictures of their work, which we used in our colour plates.

Chapter 6: Dr Hugo van Dam for valuable suggestions to improve the text of the second edition; Dr Adri Bos for suggestions on sect. 6.3.2; Dr Frank Barnaby for suggestions on sects. 6.1.7 and 6.4.6; Dr Wim Hogervorst for his helpful contribution to Sect. 6.4.2; Dr Joern Harry for helping us with a description of the Japan Fukushima calamity, which was added in proof.

Chapter 8: Dr Ilse Aben for introducing us to the secrets of Sciamachy and correcting our draft; Dr Apituley and Dr Donovan for providing a text and illustrations for backscatter lidar of sect. 8.6.2

Chapter 9: Dr John Grin for his valuable social insights

Prof Karel Wakker is gratefully acknowledged for his careful reading of chapters 1 to 4 and his many suggestions.

The authors are pleased with the way in which Dr Bart van Oort and Ademir Arapovic patiently have drawn and redrawn the many figures in this book and acknowledge the help of Joris Snellenburg with the colour plates.