Weather: How It Works and Why It Matters

240 Pages·2001·24.91 MB·English

by  Arthur Upgren

WEATHER
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W E A T H ER
How It Works and
Why It Matters
ARTHUR UPGREN
J U RGE N STOCK
PERSEUS PUBLISHING
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Perseus Publishing was aware of a
trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters.
Copyright © 2000 by Arthur Upgren and Jurgen Stock
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other-
wise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
C!P data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 0-7382-0521-4
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Text design by Jeff Williams
Set in 11-point Minion by Perseus Publishing Services
First paperback printing, September 2001
123456789 10—03 02 01
To Silvia, Jeanette, Bernhard, Frances, Josephine, and Eckhard
And to Joan and Amy
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A C K N O W L E D G M E N TS
The authors are grateful to Sally Brady and Amanda Cook for their help in
making a book out of an idea. John Wareham has provided many of the
figures, and Gabriele Zinn has found and secured some of them. We wish
also to acknowledge the assistance of and discussions with Maria Aven-
daflo, Paul Garmers, John Griese, Erhard Konerding, John Lee, Suzanne
O'Connell, Linda Shetdeworth, and Captain Rolf Wittmer, whose descrip-
tions of El Nino were illuminating during a delightful cruise with him of
the Galapagos Islands.
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations XI
Preface XV
1 Introduction 1
2 Temperature and Pressure:
The Fundamentals of Air 7
3 It's Not the Heat... It's the Heat and the Humidity 15
4 The Four Seasons 30
5 Other Worlds:
Lessons from Comparative Planetology 42
6 Weather Wisdom and Lore 50
7 Stormy Weather 70
8 When Time Stood Still:
The Ancient History of the Climate 76
9 Here Come the Glaciers 92
10 The Post-Glacial Period:
Homo Sapiens Comes of Age 108
1 1 The Greenhouse Gases:
Making Our Own World 124
1 2 Oceans: The Majority Rules 146
13 El Nino: From Hoax to Menace 154
14 Ozone, Good and Bad 159