Air Apparent: How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather - Hardcover

Monmonier, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226534227 ISBN 13: 9780226534220

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1999

Synopsis

Weather maps have made our atmosphere visible, understandable, and at least moderately predictable. In Air Apparent Mark Monmonier traces debates among scientists eager to unravel the enigma of storms and global change, explains strategies for mapping the upper atmosphere and forecasting disaster, and discusses efforts to detect and control air pollution. Fascinating in its scope and detail, Air Apparent makes us take a second look at the weather map, an image that has been, and continues to be, central to our daily lives.

"Clever title, rewarding book. Monmonier . . . offers here a basic course in meteorology, which he presents gracefully by means of a history of weather maps." —Scientific American

"Mark Monmonier is onto a winner with Air Apparent. . . . It is good, accessible science and excellent history. . . . Read it." —Fred Pearce, New Scientist

"[Air Apparent] is a superb first reading for any backyard novice of weather . . . but even the veteran forecaster or researcher will find it engaging and, in some cases, enlightening." —Joe Venuti, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

"Monmonier is solid enough in his discussion of geographic and meteorological information to satisfy the experienced weather watcher. But even if this information were not presented in such a lively and engaging manner, it would still hook most any reader who checks the weather map every morning or who sits happily entranced through a full cycle of forecasts on the Weather Channel."—Michael Kennedy, Boston Globe

About this title

About the Author

Mark Monmonier is distinguished professor of geography at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Reviews

Clever title, rewarding book. Monmonier, professor of geography at Syracuse University, offers here a basic course in meteorology, which he presents gracefully by means of a history of weather maps. The earliest of the many such maps that illustrate the book was published in 1686 by English astronomer Edmond Halley; it showed trade winds and monsoons in, as Halley put it, "the Seas between and near the Tropicks, with an Attempt to Assign the Phisical Cause of the Said Winds." By the end of the book, one is looking at maps based on such high-tech meteorological aids as weather satellites, radar and the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer. Contemporary meteorology, Monmonier says, is "arguably today's single most map-intensive scientific enterprise."

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226534227
• ISBN 13: 9780226534220
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324