![Climate Dynamics]( "Climate Dynamics")
Click to have a closer look
About this book
Contents
Customer reviews
Biography
Related titles
About this book
Climate Dynamics provides an essential foundation in the physical understanding of Earth's climate system. Assuming no previous introduction to the climate system, the book is designed for all science, math, and engineering students at the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate levels. This second edition includes updated and expanded information on hydrology, the cryosphere, observed contemporary climate change, and climate prediction. In addition, the illustrations are expanded and now in full colour.
The first section of the book provides a description of the climate system based on current observations of the mean climate state and its variability. The second section develops a quantitative understanding of the processes that determine the climate state – radiation, heat balances, and the basics of fluid dynamics applied to the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere. The third and final section focuses on observed contemporary climate change and prediction.
Contents
Preface
Part I: Earth’s Climate System
Chapter 1. An Introduction to the Climate System
Chapter 2. The Observed Climatology: An Atlas
Chapter 3. Natural Climate Variability
Part II: Climate System Processes
Chapter 4. Radiative Processes in the Climate System
Chapter 5. Thermodynamics and the Flow of Heat through the Climate System
Chapter 6. Dynamics: The Forces That Drive Atmospheric and Ocean Circulations
Chapter 7. Atmospheric Circulations
Chapter 8. Ocean Circulation Systems
Chapter 9. The Hydrologic Cycle
Chapter 10. Cryospheric Processes
Part III: Contemporary Climate Change
Chapter 11. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change
Chapter 12. Climate Sensitivity and Feedbacks
Chapter 13. Earth’s Changing Climate
Chapter 14. Climate Change Prediction
Appendix A Units, Constants, and Conversions
Appendix B Coordinate Systems
Appendix C Lagrangian and Eulerian Derivatives
Index
Customer Reviews
Biography
Kerry H. Cook is professor of climate system science in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin.
Textbook
By: Kerry Harrison Cook(Author)
280 pages, 157 colour illustrations
Reviews of the first edition:
"Climate change and its impacts are being embraced by a wider community than just earth scientists. A useful textbook, Climate Dynamics covers the basic science required to gain insights into what constitutes the climate system and how it behaves. While still being quantitative, the material is written in a lecture-note style that creates a simplified, but not simple, approach to teaching this complex subject."
– Chris E. Forest, Pennsylvania State University
"Comprehensive and rigorous, Climate Dynamics is a good reference for the basics of the field. With its in-depth treatment and perceptive exercises, it lays out an excellent undergraduate course on climate change – a topic of tremendous current interest. Cook's long experience working in the area shines through."
– Richard Kleeman, New York University
"This well-written and accessible book contains material for an introductory climate dynamics course. The choice of materials and presentation range from observations and simple radiative transfer models to climate feedbacks."
– Tapio Schneider, California Institute of Technology
