Visualizing Weather and Climate

Visualizing Weather and Climate Change will capture the reader's interest in weather and climate and then use that interest to engage them in activities that demonstrate the science that serves as the basis of the discipline. Sections such as Eye on the Atmosphere use beautiful imagery to help them see the atmosphere through the eyes of a meteorologist and ask scientific questions that place significant features in atmospheric context. It also includes expanded coverage of global change and recent phenomena. Chapter summaries, self-tests and critical thinking questions help prepare readers for quizzes and tests while the illustrated case studies offer a wide variety of in-depth examinations that address important issues in the field of environmental science.

1 Introducing Weather and Climate 2

2 The Earth’s Atmosphere 28

3 The Earth’s Global energy Balance 50

4 Surface Temperature and its Variation 82

5 Atmospheric Moisture 120

6 Winds 154

7 Global Atmospheric and Oceanic Circulation 182

8 Midatitude Weather Systems 216

9 Tropical Weather Systems 244

10 Thunderstorms and Tornadoes 268

11 The Global Scope of Climate 298

12 Climates of the World 320

13 Climate Variability 352

14 Human Interaction with Weather and Climate 384

15 Weather Forecasting and Numerical Modeling 412

16 Human-Induced Climate Change and Climate Forecasting 440

Appendix

A Units of Measurement and Conversion 472

B The U.S. Standard Atmosphere 473

C Weather Station and Map Symbols 474

D Self-Test Answer Key 475

Glossary 476

Credits 489

Index 493

Bruce T. Anderson is an Associate Chair of the Department of Geography and Environment at Boston University. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department. He serves as a Research Consultant for the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) project and heads the Experimental Center for Remote Observations of Production (ECROP). He serves on the Membership Committee for the American Meteorological Society. He has been a National Research Council Fellow and a NOAA Visiting Scientist Fellow. He has over 25 peer-reviewed articles published or in press over the last 5 years and has been the invited speaker at both national and international universities, conferences, and workshops. His research interests include regional impacts of climate variability, large-scale and regional atmospheric dynamics and hydrology, coupled ocean-atmosphere variability, and climate/vegetation interactions and feedbacks. He received his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1998 and graduated with a B.S. in Physics from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1994.

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Rainfall witin a Tropical Cyclone

This set of satellite images show two views of Hurricane Emily in the Gulf of Mexico on July 20, 2005.

In part A, we see a satellite image of clouds, with the storm's eye at the center.Although this image gives a sense of the scale of the hurricane, it does not identify where the winds are most intense or where rainfall is heaviest.

Part B is an image produced using a special radar aboard a satellite that maps water droplets, providing a three-dimensional image of the tropical cyclone. Note the very intense rainfall near the eye (represented by the red colors), as well as the local rainfall in the bands to the northwest and southeast of the eye.

CONCEPT CHECK STOP

What are the weather characteristics of an eargerly wave?

What are the characteristic features of tropical cyclones?

How do scientists measure pressure, winds, and precipitation within tropical cyclones?

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