E-Book Overview
Provides students with a solid foundation in climate science, with which to understand global warming, natural climate variations, and climate models. As climate models are one of our primary tools for predicting and adapting to climate change, it is vital we appreciate their strengths and limitations. Also key is understanding what aspects of climate science are well understood and where quantitative uncertainties arise. This textbook will inform the future users of climate models and the decision-makers of tomorrow by providing the depth they need, while requiring no background in atmospheric science and only basic calculus and physics. Developed from a course that the author teaches at UCLA, material has been extensively class-tested and with online resources of colour figures, Powerpoint slides, and problem sets, this is a complete package for students across all sciences wishing to gain a solid grounding in climate science.
E-Book Content
Climate Change and Climate Modeling
Praise for this book: TO COME [2-3 quotes] The modeling of past, present and future climates is of fundamental importance to the issue of climate change and variability. Climate Change and Climate Modeling provides a solid foundation for science students in all disciplines for our current understanding of global warming and important natural climate variations such as El Niño, and lays out the essentials of how climate models are constructed. As issues of climate change and impacts of climate variability become increasingly important, climate scientists must reach out to science students from a range of disciplines. Climate models represent one of our primary tools for predicting and adapting to climate change. An understanding of their strengths and limitations – and of what aspects of climate science are well understood and where quantitative uncertainties arise – can be communicated very effectively to students from a broad range of the sciences. This book will provide a basis for students to make informed decisions concerning climate change, whether they go on to study atmospheric science at a higher level or not. The book has been developed over a number of years from the course that the author teaches at UCLA. It has been extensively class-tested by hundreds of students, and assumes no previous background in atmospheric science except basic calculus and physics. This book: • provides a solid understanding of the physical climate system and the underpinnings of
current climate assessments • provides a bridge between introductory textbooks and popular science books on climate change, and advanced textbooks on atmospheric science • is supported by a range of internet resources J. David Neelin is a professor and chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and member of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published over 100 scientific papers, including contributions to understanding and predictability of the El Niño Southern oscillation phenomenon, decadal variability, vegetation interaction with climate variability, how rainfall interacts with natural climate variability and anthropogenic change, and methods of improving representation of rainfall processes in climate models. He has taught courses in climate science from introductory undergraduate to advanced graduate level. He is a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Royal Meteorological Society and the American Meteorological Society, and the recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation Special Creativity Award and the American Meteorological Society Meisinger Award.
NEELIN: “FM” — 2010/8/7 — 19:40 — PAGE i — #1
NEELIN: “FM” — 2010/8/7 — 19:40 — PAGE ii — #2
Climate Change and Climate Modeling J. DAVID NEELIN Unive