If you only have 30 seconds, there is time - using this book - to make sense of the science behind the seeming vagaries of the weather, the controversies, predictions and forecasts for climate change that shape our day-to-day experiences of the great outdoors. Ever since Aristotle first tried to explain the forces that seem to fall from the heavens, meteorology has opened up the study of weather, and caused disputes over the reasons why seasons change, where precipitation falls, why winds blow and when the sun shines. From halcyon days to hurricanes, supercells to silver linings, global warming to giant hailstones, here is the ultimate guide to a near-universal preoccupation: what's the weather like?
Reihe
Sprache
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Verlagsgruppe
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Höhe: 195 mm
Breite: 153 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78240-754-6 (9781782407546)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Professor Adam Scaife is head of Monthly to Decadal Prediction at the UK Met Office and honorary visiting Professor at Exeter University. He investigates mechanisms and predictability of weather and climate and has over 20 years experience in modelling the atmosphere with computer models. He has published around 100 scientific papers in leading journals and his recent studies include exciting new evidence for long range predictability of winter weather. His work has helped understand how the freezing European winters of the 1960s gave way to the mild, wet winters of the 1990s and how other effects like El Nino and solar variability affect our climate. Professor Scaife was recently awarded the Lloyd's of London Science of Risk Research Prize for Climate Change research and the L.G. Groves prize for Meteorology. He regularly communicates the latest meteorological science to the public via television, newspapers and other media.
8 Introduction
12 The Elements
14 GLOSSARY
16 Air
18 Layers of the atmosphere
20 Seasons
22 Clouds
24 Rain
26 Frost
28 Snow
30 Hail
32 Fog
34 Profile: Lewis Fry Richardson
36 Pressure, isobars, cyclones and anticyclones
38 Coriolis Force
40 Wind: atmospheric balance
42 Local winds
44 The Global Atmosphere
46 GLOSSARY
48 Air masses and weather fronts
50 Jet streams
52 Storm tracks
54 Atmospheric waves
56 Profile: Carl-Gustaf Rossby
58 Blocking, heatwaves and cold snaps
60 Hadley circulation and deserts
62 Trade winds
64 Rainy seasons
66 Monsoons
68 Polar vortex
70 The Sun
72 GLOSSARY
74 Blue sky
76 Sunshine
78 Rainbows
80 Mirages, sundogs and haloes
82 Sunspots and climate
84 Profile: Gilbert Walker
86 Space weather
88 Weather Watching & Forecasting
90 GLOSSARY
92 Weather records
94 Profile: Jule Charney
96 Weather satellites and radar
98 Weather forecasting
100 Chaos
102 Climate prediction
104 Can We Change the Weather?
106 GLOSSARY
108 The ozone hole
110 Global warming and the greenhouse effect
112 Profile: Svante Arrhenius
114 Acid rain and atmospheric pollution
116 Contrails
118 Weather Cycles
120 GLOSSARY
122 Madden Julian oscillation
124 El Nino and La Nina
126 North Atlantic oscillation
128 Quasi-biennial oscillation
130 Pacific decadal oscillation
132 Atlantic multidecadal oscillation
134 Past climates and the Little Ice Age
136 Milankovitch cycles
138 Profile: Milutin Milankovic
140 Extreme Weather
142 GLOSSARY
144 Thunderstorms and lightning
146 Hurricanes and typhoons
148 Tornadoes
150 Sudden stratospheric warming
152 Profile: Edward Lorenz
154 Notes on Contributors
156 Resources
158 Index
160 Acknowledgments
