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Explains how climatologists have come to understand current climate variability and trends through analysis of observations, datasets and models.
List of contents
Foreword Antonio J. Busalacchi, Jr; Preface; List of abbreviations and acronyms; 1. Earth's climate system; 2. Climate analysis: goals and methods; 3. Climate analysis: atmospheric instruments, observations, and datasets; 4. Climate variability; 5. Climate change; 6. Temperature: building climate datasets; 7. Precipitation: combining in-situ and remotely-sensed observations in constructing climate datasets; 8. Ocean climate datasets; 9. Cryosphere; 10. Land component of the climate system; 11. Climate models as information sources and analysis tools; 12. Operational climate monitoring and prediction; Appendix A. A short guide to some statistics used in climate analysis; Appendix B. Vorticity/divergence, stream function/velocity potential; Appendix C. Preliminary examination of the data; Appendix D. Components of the mean water budget; Glossary; References; Index.
About the author
Chester F. Ropelewski has fifty years of experience in climate analysis, including weather forecasting, development of climate datasets and real-time monitoring systems, research in atmospheric turbulence, tropical boundary layers, hurricanes, the North American monsoon, sea ice, snow cover, climate variability, El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, hydrologic cycle, and droughts. He was awarded the Norbert Gerbier-Mumm Award from the World Meteorological Organization in 1990, and elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2001. He is the author of over 100 research papers, book chapters and reports. He was Chief of the Analysis Branch of the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Director of the Climate Monitoring section of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University; and a Senior Policy Analyst and Advisor of The Earth Institute, Columbia University.Phillip A. Arkin has over forty years of experience as an innovative research scientist and leader at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Columbia University; and the University of Maryland, where he currently works. He has played a leading role in shaping the use of satellite data to estimate precipitation for climate studies and created the first system to use weather model analyses for climate monitoring and research. He has initiated and led several international research projects and has mentored a diverse collection of young scientists who have gone on to fruitful careers in climate science. He has published nearly 100 papers in the weather and climate literature, most of them focused on the climate datasets and their applications that are the subject of this book. He is Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (2000), recipient of the Hugh Robert Mill Award from the Royal Meteorology Society (2004), and a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Maryland.
Summary
This book provides a non-mathematical exposition of climate observations, datasets, and models, based on the authors' combined decades of experience. It describes scientific principles, instruments, observations, climate datasets, and analysis techniques for advanced students, researchers and practitioners in climatology.
