A PROPOSAL TO CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS TO PUBLISH A TEXTBOOK 1. Co‐authors: Jacques Derome Professor Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences McGill University 805 Sherbrooke St. W. Montreal, QC, Canada Tel.: 514-398-5350; Fax: 514-398-6115 Email:
[email protected] http://www.mcgill.ca/meteo/faculty_staff/faculty /derome/
Da-Lin Zhang Professor Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences University of Maryland Room 2423, Computer & Space Sci. Bldg College Park, MD 20742-2425, USA Tel: (301) 405-2018; Fax: (301) 314-9482 Email:
[email protected] http://www.meto.umd.edu/~dalin/
Jacques Derome has been a faculty member at McGill University since 1972. He has taught atmospheric dynamics at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and in particular a 13-week graduate level course on the topic of the proposed textbook. He has published over 65 papers in international peer-reviewed journals on various aspects of large-scale atmospheric dynamics. His most recent contributions have been on seasonal forecasting with global numerical models and on the interactions between tropical atmospheric systems, notably the Madden-Julian Oscillation”, with the extra-tropics. Da-Lin Zhang started his academic career as an assistant professor in 1989 at McGill University, and joined the University of Maryland in 1996. He has taught the dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans at both the undergraduate and graduate levels while he was at McGill University. Since 1997, he has taught the same courses during the first two semesters of fresh graduate students, including the one on the topic of the proposed textbook, at the University of Maryland. He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals on the modeling and understanding of dynamical and physical processes taking place in severe convective storms, such as squall lines, hurricanes, and extratropical cyclones. His most recent theoretical work includes the development of a theory for mixed vortex-Rossby-gravity waves in tropical cyclones, and of an analytical model for the rapid intensification of tropical cyclones. 2. Title “A short course on atmospheric and oceanic waves” 3. Reasons for writing There are several graduate-level textbooks or reference books on the market that cover in one way or another the material that we propose to include in the textbook, but none with the audience or the type of course we have in mind. Some are very broad in the topics they cover on atmospheric and/or oceanic dynamics, atmospheric and oceanic waves being only one of them, (e.g., Dutton, 1986; Holton 2004; Vallis 2006) or too advanced for a first course on waves and stability (e.g., LeBlond and Mysak 1978; Drazin and Reid 1981) in many universities.
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In many AOS (Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences) graduate programs the first semester is composed of courses dealing with the fundamental dynamics and thermodynamics of the atmosphere and oceans (e.g., the first six chapters of Holton 2004), while the second semester focuses on more specific subjects such as “Atmospheric and Oceanic Waves.” Thus, our proposed textbook would be aimed at the first-year graduate students taking a first course on atmospheric and oceanic waves. This textbook should also be useful as a text or reference book for the upper undergraduate level courses in AOS as well as in fluid dynamics. We have not seen such a book available for this level of graduate and undergraduate students. In graduate programs which insert the treatment of atmospheric and oceanic waves in a broader course on dynamics, the instructors could use the proposed textbook as