Extreme Environmental Events

Dr. Meyers has more than 20 patents and 50 technical papers in the fields of photochemistry, pollution control, inorganic reactions, organic reactions, luminescence phenomena and polymers. He has published in primary literature journals including Science and the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. Dr Meyers’ scientific achievements have been reviewed in feature articles in the popular press in publications such as The New York Times Science Supplement and The Wall Street Journal as well as more specialized publications such as Chemical Engineering and Coal Age. A public service film was produced by the Environmental Protection Agency of Dr. Meyers' chemical desulfurization invention for air pollution control.

"Forecasting and early warning of natural hazards has been in the news over the last several years, particularly in Japan (earthquake and tsunami early warning and forecasting after the March 2011 magnitude 9 Eastern Japan earthquake), Chile (tsunami warning after the February 2010 magnitude 8.8 earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Chile) and the United States (after a series of tornadoes in the Central and eastern United States and the startup of the development of a earthquake early warning system for California, Oregon and Washington). The two volume set Extreme Environmental Events and Complexity in Forecasting and Early Warning Selected Entries from the Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science is a professional level reference that provides a basic background on climate change, earthquake forecasting and early warning, tsunami forecasting and warning and volcanic hazard forecasting and warning. It also contains a number of papers on highly technical issues such as the location and modeling of earthquakes and tsunamis and the modeling of volcanic tremors. The set covers topics from economic impact of climate change to use of earthquake early warning in Italy and Japan. Each paper in the set contains a glossary that allows the reader to easily follow what the authors are trying to convey without getting distracted by terms that may have different meanings or uses in different disciplines. "I found that the set was a great introduction to the subject matter but was somewhat unbalanced in the selection of papers. I did not find any papers on the economic, agricultural or human health impacts of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis or earthquakes. A few papers covering such topics like what was covered for climate change would have been most welcome. Overall, the set Extreme Environmental Events and Complexity in Forecasting and Early Warning Selected Entries from the Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science would be a welcome addition to any university library."-- Robert Anderson, Alfred E. Alquist Seismic Safety Commission, Sacramento, CA, USA, May 2012

• Complexity in Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes, and Forecast.- Complexity in Human Reaction to Extreme Events.- Climate Modeling, Global Warming and Weather Prediction.