Desert Meteorology

This comprehensive volume will satisfy all who need to know more about the weather and climate of arid lands.

Thomas T. Warner (Author)

9780521100489, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 January 2009

620 pages, 268 b/w illus. 11 colour illus. 30 tables
24.6 x 18.9 x 3.2 cm, 1.09 kg

Desert Meteorology is a comprehensive and extraordinary book on desert ecosystems, and should be read, referred to, or even browsed through by everyone interested in and concerned with the fate of our planet."
Esmail Malek, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Aridity prevails over more than one third of the land area of the Earth and over a significant fraction of the oceans as well. Yet to date there has been no comprehensive reference volume or textbook dealing with the weather processes that define the character of desert areas. Desert Meteorology fills this gap by treating all aspects of desert weather, such as large-scale and local-scale causes of aridity; precipitation characteristics in deserts; dust storms; floods; climate change in deserts; precipitation processes; desertification; land-surface physics of deserts; numerical modelling of desert atmospheres; and the effect of desert weather on humans. A summary is provided of the climates and surface properties of the desert areas of the world. The book is written with the assumption that the reader has only a basic knowledge of meteorology, physics and calculus, making it useful to those in a wide range of disciplines. It includes review questions and problems for the student. This comprehensive volume will satisfy all who need to know more about the weather and climate of arid lands. It will appeal especially to advanced students and researchers in environmental science, meteorology, physical geography, hydrology and engineering.

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
8. Desert-surface physical properties
9. Numerical modelling 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 environments
18. Desertification
19. Biometeorology of humans in desert environments
20. Optical properties of desert atmospheres
Appendices
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Meteorology & climatology [RBP]