Description
Book SynopsisThe atmosphere is critical to climate change. It can amplify shifts in the climate system, and also mitigate them. This primer offers a short, reader-friendly introduction to these atmospheric processes and how they work. It looks at how our climate system receives energy from the sun and sheds it by emitting infrared radiation back into space.
Trade Review"Readers ready for a book-length treatment of [the role of clouds in climate] may find the right level of detail in Atmosphere, Clouds, and Climate, a new book by Dr. Randall."--Justin Gillis, NYTimes.com's Green blog "In four chapters and a mere 139 pages, Randall provides readers with an impressively thorough conceptual understanding of the atmosphere's central role in climate... His passion consistently shines through."--Spencer Hill, Science "This book, part of the Princeton Primers in Climate series, is a very lucid and enjoyable introduction to weather and climate. Randall provides basic technical details, usually in the appendixes, but he devotes considerable effort to making the nine-chapter text accessible to a wide audience by including intuitive explanations for the concepts presented... Suitable for academic students and interested professionals who wish to have a basic understanding of the atmosphere."--Choice "[T]his primer does exactly what it sets out to do--provide a concise but rigorous introduction to a complex subject that affects us all on all scales."--John Brittan, Leading Edge
Table of ContentsPreface vii Chapter 1: Basics 1 Chapter 2: Radiative Energy Flows 27 Chapter 3: How Turbulence and Cumulus Clouds Carry Energy Upward 55 Appendix to Chapter 3: More about Eddy Fluxes 96 Chapter 4: How Energy Travels from the Tropics to the Poles 103 Appendix to Chapter 4: Conservation of Momentum on a Rotating Sphere 134 Chapter 5: Feedbacks 140 Chapter 6: The Water Planet 160 Chapter 7: Predictability of Weather and Climate 183 Chapter 8: Air, Sea, Land 206 Chapter 9: Frontiers 227 Notes 233 Glossary 239 Suggestions for Further Reading 247 Bibliography 253 Index 261
