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HANDBOOK OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE: PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS C. N. Hewitt and A. Jackson, Eds., 2003, 633 pp., $300.00, hardbound, Blackwell, ISBN 0-632-05286-4
This handbook, a collection of contributions by a distinguished group of atmospheric scientists, is divided into two parts consisting of 21 sections.
Part 1-Principles of Atmospheric Science: This part contains 12 sections giving fundamental background information. Section 1 describes the chemical evolution of the composition of Earth's atmosphere compared with the atmospheres of Mars and Venus, noting the enormous differences among these planetary atmospheres. Section 2, describing the structure of the atmosphere and its energy budget, is very well written and complete, but has a few small imperfections. The discussion of solar and terrestrial radiation uses wavelength, yet in Figure 2.10 wave number is used as the abscissa without any comment. Further, the ordinates of this figure have transmittance and absorptance going in the same direction, when they should go in opposite directions. Later on in the section, the terms UVA and UVB are used without definition of the wavelength bands. Section 3 is an extensive review of the Earth's climates, while section 4 reviews the residence times of various chemical species and their biogeochemical cycling. Sources of various gaseous and particulate species, along with some corresponding health effects, are reviewed in section 5. Section 6 provides an introduction to tropospheric photochemistry and includes a discussion...