Book Review

by Paul Ganderton

Robinson PJ. and Henderson-Sellers A. 1999. Contemporary Climatology. 2nd ed. Longmans. Pp xiii + 317. ISBN 0 582 27631 4.

This book is a modern beginner's guide to basic atmospheric science. The 14 chapters cover a vast range of topics including all the standard ones - rain, pressure, energy, radiation, moisture etc. and some that are welcome but more often left out - modelling, human impact, and climate change. The emphasis is on the practical: each chapter has a section where the concepts mentioned in the text are demonstrated with real-life cases.

This book is both lucid and comprehensive. It covers all the basic terminology and concepts that you would be likely to require. It also goes further than many textbooks by having a website. Many so-called global meteorology texts focus on a specific set of countries but this one is far more catholic in its tastes with examples at a variety of scales and locations. It covers tropical as well as temperate meteorology. A major feature is the focus on practical uses and cases set at the end of each chapter to give immediate feedback. Given this emphasis it would make an excellent addition to the school shelves.