There are few aspects of the physical environment that influence our daily lives more than the phenomena we collectively call weather. Newspapers, magazines, and television stations regularly report a wide range of weather events as major news stories—an obvious reflection of people's interest and curiosity about the atmosphere. We also face important environmental problems related to the atmosphere. Such issues as air pollution, ozone depletion, and global warming require our attention. A basic meteorology course can take advantage of our interest and curiosity about the weather as well as our desire to understand the impact that people have on the atmospheric environment.
The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology, Ninth Edition, is designed to meet the needs of students who enroll in such a course. It is our hope that the knowledge gained by taking a class and using this book will encourage many to actively participate in bettering the environment, and others may be sufficiently stimulated to continue their study of meteorology. Equally important, however, is our belief that a basic understanding of the atmosphere and its processes will greatly enhance appreciation of our planet and thereby enrich the reader's life.
In addition to being informative and up-to-date, a major goal of The Atmosphere is to meet the need of beginning students for a readable and user-friendly text, a book that is a highly usable "tool" for learning basic meteorological principles and concepts.
Distinguishing Features Readability
The language of this book is straightforward and written to be understood. Clear, readable discussions with a minimum of technical language are the rule. The frequent headings and subheadings help students follow discussions and identify the important ideas presented in each chapter. In the ninth edition, improved readability was achieved by examining chapter organization and flow, and writing in a more personal style. Large portions of the text were substantially rewritten in an effort to make the material more understandable.
Illustrations and Photographs
Meteorology is highly visual. Therefore, photographs and artwork are a very important part of an introductory book. The Atmosphere, Ninth Edition, contains dozens of new high-quality photographs that were carefully selected to aid understanding, add realism, and heighten the interest of the reader. Among these are many new satellite images that provide a unique perspective of many atmospheric phenomena.
The illustrations in each new edition of The Atmosphere keep getting better and better. In the ninth edition more than 100 pieces of line art are new or revised. The new art illustrates ideas and concepts more clearly and realistically than ever before. Dennis Tasa, a gifted artist and respected science illustrator, carried out the art program.
Focus on Learning
When a chapter has been completed, five useful devices help students review. First, the Chapter Summary recaps all the major points. Next, the Vocabulary Review provides a checklist of key terms with page references. Learning the language of meteorology helps students learn the material. This is followed by the Review Questions section, which helps students examine their knowledge of significant facts and ideas. In most chapters, Problems, many with a quantitative orientation, follow the review questions. Most problems require only basic mathematical skills and allow students to enhance their understanding by applying skills and principles explained in the chapter.It contains many excellent opportunities for review and exploration.
Environmental Issues and Atmospheric Hazards
Many of the serious environmental issues that face humanity are related to the atmosphere. This new edition includes up-to-date treatment of air pollution, ozone depletion, global warming, and more.
Because atmospheric hazards adversely affect millions of people worldwide every day, coverage of this topic has been expanded. At appropriate places throughout the book students will have an opportunity to learn more about atmospheric hazards. Two entire chapters (Chapter 10, "Thunderstorms and Tornadoes" and Chapter 11, "Hurricanes") focus almost entirely on hazardous weather. In addition, a number of the book's special-interest boxes are devoted to a broad variety of atmospheric hazards, including heat waves, winter storms, floods, dust storms, drought, mudslides, and lightning.
Maintaining a Focus on Basic Principles
Although many topical issues are treated in the ninth edition of The Atmosphere, it should be emphasized that the main focus remains the same as that of its predecessors—to foster a basic understanding of the atmospheric environment. In keeping with this aim, the organization of the text remains intentionally traditional. Following an overview of the atmosphere in Chapter 1, the next 10 chapters are devoted to a presentation of the major elements and concepts of meteorology. Chapter 12, on weather analysis, follows and serves to reinforce and apply many of the concepts presented in the preceding chapters. Chapter 13 is devoted to the important issue of air pollution.
The text concludes with two chapters on climate (Chapters 14 and 15) and one devoted to optical phenomena (Chapter 16). Chapter 14, "The Changing Climate," explores a topic that is the focus of much public interest as well as scientific research: Is global climate changing, and if so, in what ways? How are people causing or contributing to these changes? The discussions in Chapter 14 have been carefully and thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the fast-changing nature of this sometimes controversial subject.
More About the Ninth Edition
The ninth edition of The Atmosphere represents a thorough revision. Every part of the book was examined carefully with the dual goals of keeping topics current and improving the clarity of text discussions. People familiar with preceding editions will see much that is new in the ninth edition.
- New CD-ROM. Each copy of The Atmosphere 9e comes with a new interactive CD-ROM: GEODe: Atmosphere. This new product provides broad coverage of basic topics in meteorology. The CD includes tutorials, interactive exercises, animations, and "In the Lab" activities. The desire to have such a learning tool was the number-one request among professors who prepared pre-revision reviews. A table of contents for the CD-ROM appears in the front matter for easy reference. Moreover, a special GEODe: Atmosphere icon appears throughout the book wherever a text discussion has a corresponding GEODe: Atmosphere activity.
- A new feature, "Students Sometimes Ask . . . " is now part of every chapter. A few questions and answers are distributed at appropriate places in each chapter and identified by a large question mark. They are the kind of questions inquisitive students might ask during class sessions and are intended to add interest and relevance to text discussions. We are indebted to Professor Alan Trujillo at Palomar College for this excellent idea.
- Thirteen of the special-interest boxes are new. They include interesting case studies, new applications of technology, and examples that illustrate the scientific method.
