Atmospheric Science: An Introductory Survey (International Geophysics)

This book has been written in response to a need for a text to support several of the introductory courses in atmospheric sciences commonly taught in universities; namely, introductory survey courses at the junior or senior undergraduate level and beginning graduate level, the undergraduate physical meteorology course, and the undergraduate synoptic laboratory. These courses serve to introduce the student to the fundamental physical principles upon which the atmospheric sciences are based and to provide an elementary description and interpretation of the wide range of atmospheric phenomena dealt with in detail in more advanced courses. In planning the book we have assumed that students enrolled in such courses have already had some exposure to calculus and physics at the first-year college level and to chemistry at the high school level.

JOHN M. WALLACE was born in New York in 1940. He received his Bachelor's degree from Webb Institute of Naval Architecture and his PhD from MIT, where he worked closely with Professors Victor P. Starr and Reginald E. Newell. He has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington since 1966. He has served terms as department chair, as Director of the Joint Institute of the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, and as Co-director of the University of Washington's Program on the Environment. His research interests include large scale atmospheric dynamics and climate variability and change. He regularly teaches an introductory graduate class in which this textbook is used.

PETER V. HOBBS was born in London in 1936. He received his doctorate from Imperial College, University of London, where he worked in the research group headed by Sir B. John Mason. He joined the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington in 1963, and served as a faculty member there until his death in 2005. In his role as founder and director of the the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group(CARG) in the department, he acquired and maintained a series of instrumented research aircraft with which he and his staff and students made field measurements of clouds, frontal systems and effluents from fires, volcanoes and industrial sources in many different parts of the world. He was a prolific writer and a devoted instructor and mentor of students. In recognition of his research and teaching contributions he was named an Honorary Member of the American Meteorological Society.