Desert Meteorology

About this book

This book provides an account of weather and climate of arid lands. It treats all aspects of desert weather, such as large-scale and local-scale causes of aridity, precipitation characteristics in deserts, dust storms and floods, climate change in deserts, precipitation processes, desertification, the land-surface physics of deserts, numerical modeling of desert atmospheres, and the effect of desert weather on humans.

Contents

1. Introduction; 2. The atmospheric dynamics of deserts; 3. The climates of the world deserts; 4. Atmospheric and surface energy budgets of deserts; 5. Surface physics of the unvegetated sandy desert landscape; 6. Vegetation effects on desert surface physics; 7. Substrate effects on desert surface physics; 8. Desert-surface physical properties; 9. Numerical modeling of desert atmospheres; 10. Desert boundary layers; 11. Desert microclimates; 12. Dynamic interactions among desert microclimates; 13. Desert rainfall; 14. Anthropogenic effects on the desert atmosphere; 15. Changes in desert climate; 16. Severe weather in the desert; 17. Effects of deserts on the global environment and other regional; 18. Desertification; 19. Bioclimatology of deserts; 20. Optical properties of desert atmospheres; Appendices; Index.

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Biography

Tom Warner was a Professor in the Department of Meteorology at the Pennsylvania State University before accepting his current joint appointment with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. Professor Warner's career has involved teaching and research in mesoscale meteorological processes and in numerical weather prediction, and he has published on these subjects in numerous professional journals. His recent research and teaching have focused on atmospheric processes and operational weather prediction in arid areas.