INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY

Int. J. Climatol. 19: 113–115 (1999)

BOOK REVIEWS

ANTARCTIC METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY. form around the coast of Antarctica more frequently than was
J.C. King and J. Turner, Cambridge University Press, Atmo- thought previously. Many of these occur in outbreaks of cold
spheric and Space Science Series, 1997. No. of pages: xi + 409. polar air and show a characteristic comma shape on satellite
Price: £55.00, US$: 90.00. ISBN 0 521 46560 5(Hb). images. A number of case studies are given, combining UK
Meteorological Office surface and upper air analyses, local
Understanding of the meteorology and climatology of the observations and satellite data. Maps of depression tracks and
Antarctic continent and the interactions with atmospheric and of areas of cyclogenesis and cyclolysis are reproduced and the
oceanic conditions at lower latitudes has made great progress high inter-annual variability discussed. The chapter concludes
since the International Geophysical Year of 1957/58 brought a with a description of methods of operational analysis and
major advance in the availability of Antarctic observations. forecasting in the Antarctic.
The coverage of surface and upper air observing stations Chapter 6 is entitled ‘mesoscale systems and processes’ and
remains far from ideal, especially over the Antarctic Plateau, includes discussion of barrier and katabatic winds, with exam-
but satellite observing systems and automatic weather stations ples of long-distance propagation (ca.1000 km) of the latter
now provide much valuable data. Early numerical prediction across the Ross Ice Shelf. Boundary layer structure and blow-
models were unable to model realistically conditions over the ing snow are also covered, and the final part of the chapter is
high Antarctic Plateau, with its very strong low-level inversion concerned with mesocyclones, whose frequent occurrence only
and katabatic winds, but improvements in vertical and hori- became apparent when they were revealed by satellite imagery.
zontal resolution are now making this possible. Although The final chapter gives an analysis of the historical climate
much remains to be done, this is an appropriate time for the record, details of studies of interactions with the ENSO cycle
publication of a comprehensive survey of the current state of and a short discussion of the latest (at the time of writing)
knowledge, which is the aim of this book. The area covered is predictions from Global Climate Models of future Antarctic
principally that to the south of 60°S and the authors have temperatures and the mass balance of the ice sheets.
confined their remit to the troposphere; they do not include There is much useful information in this book, which also
the stratospheric ‘ozone hole’. contains a listing of data sources, a large number of references
The first two chapters describe the physical characteristics of and an index, but some diagrams which have been reproduced
the Antarctic and the history and methods of observation, from other papers lack sufficient explanation in either the
giving considerable detail of the various types of satellite captions or the text, and some, notably in Chapter 3, have
observations and their potential usefulness in the Antarctic. In nearly invisible lines. I think that it would have been better to
the southern hemisphere, the initial analyses for numerical include mesocyclones in the chapter on synoptic systems and
prediction models have to rely heavily on satellite sounding this would have avoided the awkwardness of discussing the
data because of the lack of in situ observations. Chapter 3 event of 3 – 5 January 1986 near Halley Station in two chap-
summarises the results of observations of the physical clima- ters, with an incorrect forward reference on page 220. On page
tology, including radiation, surface and upper air temperature, 4, it is stated that the sea ice is ‘at its maximum extent in late
surface and upper air winds, pressure, clouds and precipita- summer’, when it should be winter, and on page 125, that ‘Ice
tion, sea-ice and the characteristics of the Southern Ocean. retreat is most rapid in the autumn/early summer period’. For
Chapter 4 deals with the large-scale circulation and the heat, readers without easy access to a modern detailed map of the
vorticity and water vapour budgets. It includes a discussion of continent, the two maps on the end papers are barely ade-
the circulation required to maintain the katabatic winds. The quate, especially since the only topographic map is Figure 1.1,
water-vapour budget leads on to estimates and measurements which has contours at 1000 m spacing.
of snow accumulation and a discussion of the mass balance of
the Antarctic ice sheets.
Synoptic scale weather systems and fronts are covered in MARJORY G. ROY,
Chapter 5. One of the primary areas of cyclogenesis is the 1 Belford A6enue, Edinburgh, EH4 3EH
polar front, which in the Southern Hemisphere lies between
40°S and 50°S, and depressions formed there move eastwards
and southwards, eventually declining in the circumpolar
trough to the north of Antarctica. The high Antarctic Plateau DYNAMICS OF METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATE.
prevents them from moving inland over the continent, except Richard S. Scorer, John Wiley and Sons (Wiley — Praxis Series
on rare occasions when the long-wave pattern has a large in Atmospheric Physics) Chichester, 1997. No. of pages:
amplitude. Satellite data have played a major role in investi- xxxiii + 686. Price: £65.00. ISBN 0471 96815 3 (Hb). £29.95
gating the weather systems and they revealed that depressions ISBN 0471 96816 1 (Pb).

CCC 0899–8418/99/010113 – 03$17.50

Copyright © 1999 Royal Meteorological Society
114 BOOK REVIEWS

This book is a revision of Natural Aerodynamics (Scorer, tion. Other slight irritations were the number of typographical
1978); the first two sections have been modified and a third errors, and a lack of supporting references on certain topics.
section, namely ‘Forecasting and climatic change’, has been The two subsections on hurricanes, for example, give a rather
added. The style of the three sections is quite variable, perhaps brief and individual approach to the topic, making no refer-
reflecting the book’s development and the author’s own ence to the great body of work which has been done to
breadth of interests, and so this work has the potential to offer understand these systems, particularly in recent years. In other
something to a variety of readers. cases, I did not always agree with the author’s arguments, and
Section 1, ‘Fundamental theory, vorticity, waves and insta- was sometimes left without another reference to consult.
bility’, deals with an introduction to geophysical fluid dynam- In summary, this is a book of potentially wide appeal. Its
ics (GFD) but with an open intention to cover the material in ideal reader would be the interested scientist who wishes to
an unorthodox manner. In this sense, this is probably not ideal understand the weather and climate, in terms of observable
basic material for a student, but would make a useful supple- phenomena, but it also has much to interest the specialist (it
mentary text to many courses involving GFD. Atmospheric may be that the first two sections could not be approached
applications, from mountain waves to the basics of synoptic without advanced training in mathematics or even GFD). I
dynamics, are discussed, as are more ‘fluid dynamical’, e.g. could imagine this book being the basis for a specialised
matters such as flow in pipes. The second section, ‘Turbulent lecture course on the dynamics of weather phenomena, but the
phenomena, clouds and dispersion’, covers turbulence and lecturer would have to be selective with the material. Having a
buoyant flows; detailed discussions of air pollution behaviour wide scope, and giving a strong sense of immediacy and
and cloud evolution are included, as well as a chapter on the relevance to some theoretical ideas, the book could certainly
aerodynamics of animal flight. The third section, ‘Forecasting be used as supplementary reading for a great many fluid
and climatic change’, is a discussion of global forecasting, of dynamics courses.
weather and climate; it is the shortest of the three parts, and
contains far less in the way of mathematical treatment, but
represents an interesting technical overview. DOUGLAS PARKER
The strengths of this book lie in the first two sections, which En6ironment Centre, Uni6ersity of Leeds
contain some excellent discussion of the dynamics behind
everyday, observable meteorology (notably, flow over hills and
smaller obstacles, thermals, buoyant plumes, and many cloud REFERENCES
systems). The basic mixture is a satisfying balance of neat
Scorer, R.S. 1978. En6ironmental Aerodynamics, Ellis Hor-
mathematics, physical arguments and simple observation, wood, Chichester.
backed up with a large number of pertinent cloud photographs
and satellite images. This will suit a mathematically trained
reader who is curious about basic meteorology, as well as
being of benefit to the many practising meteorlogists who are REGIONAL HYDROLOGICAL RESPONSE TO CLI-
unsure about ‘outdoor’ meteorology. In these areas of the MATE CHANGE, Jones, J.A.A., Liu, C., Woo, M.-K. and
book, there can be few rivals to the quality of the descriptions Kung, H.T. (eds), Kluwer, (Dordrecht), 1997. No. of pages:
given here. xviii +429. Price: DFl310.00, UK£137.00, US$199.00. ISBN
The book reads as personal account, which will suit some 0-7923-4329-8.
readers and not others. The material comes across as a guided
tour through an extremely wide subject range. Again, this style Over the last decade or so, there have been a great many
will probably be extremely stimulating for an engineer, physi- studies into the hydrological implications of climate change. A
cist or mathematician who wants to understand everyday large proportion of these studies were reviewed in the Second
atmospheric phenomena, but may not be suitable as a primary Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
course text, except for very specialised modules in meteorol- Change (Arnell et al., 1996. ‘Hydrology and freshwater ecol-
ogy. The style of writing is both personal and provocative: I ogy’, in Climate Change 1995: Impacts, Adaptations and Miti-
enjoyed the author’s many digressions, moving in a few sen- gation of Climate Change, Cambridge University Press) and
tences from discussion of vector calculus, through atmospheric one of the general conclusions was that virtually all of these
dynamics, to international policy. This style gives the work, studies were conducted in a relatively restricted part of the
and the subject as a whole, a great sense of immediacy. world: they were largely from western Europe, the United
The coverage of the material sometimes appears to have a States and, to a lesser extent, Australia.
lack of continuity; clearly it is difficult to organise such a wide This book represents the work of the International Geo-
range of topics sequentially. In the preface, the author suggests graphical Union’s working group on regional hydrological
that the book is best approached through the index. I don’t response to climate change and global warming. It includes
entirely agree, as the book’s scope is certainly not ‘complete’, papers presented at three meetings held in 1992, 1993 and
not describing every atmospheric phenomenon, but illustrating 1995, and seeks to ‘balance state-of-the-art reviews of method-
the principles behind a number of observable phenomena. ology and regional research with detailed studies of specific
Many of my own hit-list of topics were not mentioned in the countries and river basins’ (p. xi). In particular, the working
index; this was partly a result of rather poor index compila- group encouraged contributions from the non-English-speak-

Copyright © 1999 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 19: 113 – 115 (1999)