This original book describes the behavior of tropical cyclones in the South Pacific. It investigates the broad range of disturbance effects these violent storms have on the physical environments of the islands that lie in their path and the people who live on them. It is the first book to link these two themes – the characteristics of cyclones and their landscape impacts. Examples and illustrations are drawn widely from across the region, resulting in a highly readable volume.
A comprehensive summary of tropical cyclone variability at time scales from intraseasonal and interannual to interdecadal and centennial. Major climate oscillations (Madden-Julian, El Niño, Atlantic Meridional Mode and Pacific Decadal) are covered, and their impacts on tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are discussed.
This textbook introduces fundamental dynamics of tropical atmosphere and ocean useful for advanced graduate courses in atmospheric and climate sciences. It presents an overview of simple atmospheric and oceanic models, as well as the observed phenomena associated with major climate modes in the tropics. It provides students with an up-to-date understanding of the dynamics of tropical climate and weather phenomena. A particular focus is given to scale interactions and atmosphere-ocean interactions associated with tropical mean climate (such as ITCZ asymmetry and annual cycles), synoptic-scale variability (such as synoptic wave trains, easterly waves and tropical cyclones), intraseasonal oscillations (such as Madden-Julian Oscillation and boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation), and interannual variability (such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole). Theoretical and conceptual models are presented for better understanding of physical mechanisms behind the observational phenomena. This book aims to motivate graduate students in atmospheric sciences and oceanography by providing them with the key methods and tools necessary to conduct research.
The first edition of my book "Climate and Circulation of the Tropics" was reasonably up to date to the middle of 1985. In a second printing in 1988 it was possible to complete a few literature references and to correct some misprints. However, vigorous research has taken place over the past five years in various areas of tropical climate dynamics, especially in the atmosphere-ocean mechanisms of climate anomalies, climate prediction, ocean circulation, and paleoclimates. Promising progress has also been made in the application of general circulation modelling to tropical climate problems. In the present second edition, named "Climate Dynamics of the Tropics", I have attempted to incorporate much of the recent work to late 1990. Chapters 8 and 9 have been essentially re-written, and major additions have been made to Chapters 4 and 12 in particular. I would like to acknowledge the continued support by the U.S. National Science Foundation over the past five years. B. Parthasarathy, Poona, and H. Lessmann, San Salvador, sent me updates of data series not easily accessible. I have benefitted from discussions with numerous colleagues in the United States and overseas. In the preparation of this second edition, Marilyn Wolff patiently transferred my illegible hand-written drafts onto word processor. Dierk Polzin and Dan Skemp assisted me with the creation of the page masters and the subject index and Christopher Collimore with the author index.
Tropical Climatology Second Edition Glenn R. McGregor, The University of Birmingham, UK Simon Nieuwolt (deceased) Formerly Adjunct Professor, University of Guelph, Canada Climatology, the scientific study of climate, is not only concerned with explaining why a location's or region's climate is like it is but also with describing the nature and availability of the climate resource for a wide range of human activities. This subject is of great relevance to the tropics as climate in many ways controls the lives and economic activities of the approximately 2400 million people living in tropical regions. Tropical climates also have effects that reach far beyond the limits of the regions where they actually prevail: the global general circulation is largely driven by the export of considerable amounts of heat energy from tropical to extratropical latitudes: a large part of all atmospheric water content originates from the tropics, and intermittent tropical phenomena, like El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), not only influence the climates over extensive tropical areas but many parts of the extratropics. The climate sensitivity of populations and economic production in the tropics also makes these regions especially vulnerable to any negative impacts arising from human-induced climate change. Tropical Climatology aims to provide a geographical viewpoint on the physical processes in the tropical atmosphere: to offer explanations of how a location's climate is a product of these processes and to highlight the implications of tropical atmospheric behaviour and climate change for those living in the tropics. This is the second edition of the book and reflects the substantial developments in the field of tropical climatology which have taken place over the two decades since the publication of the first edition. New and updated material has been included on the nature of the general tropical circulation, the monsoons, the quasi-biennial oscillation, the 40-50 day tropical circulation, the El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon and its climatic impacts, tropical disturbances, the characteristics of regional tropical climates and climate change in the tropics. The readership of the book remains essentially the same as that for which the first edition was intended; second to third year students in geography and the environmental sciences who have some background in climatology. The updated reference list will, however, provide an entry point for non-specialist postgraduates into the field of tropical climatology.
This book is a survey of the research work done by the author over the last 15 years, in collaboration with various eminent mathematicians and climate scientists on the subject of tropical convection and convectively coupled waves. In the areas of climate modelling and climate change science, tropical dynamics and tropical rainfall are among the biggest uncertainties of future projections. This not only puts at risk billions of human beings who populate the tropical continents but it is also of central importance for climate predictions on the global scale. This book aims to introduce the non-expert readers in mathematics and theoretical physics to this fascinating topic in order to attract interest into this difficult and exciting research area. The general thyme revolves around the use of new deterministic and stochastic multi-cloud models for tropical convection and convectively coupled waves. It draws modelling ideas from various areas of mathematics and physics and used in conjunction with state-of-the-art satellite and in-situ observations and detailed numerical simulations. After a review of preliminary material on tropical dynamics and moist thermodynamics, including recent discoveries based on satellite observations as well as Markov chains, the book immerses the reader into the area of models for convection and tropical waves. It begins with basic concepts of linear stability analysis and ends with the use of these models to improve the state-of-the-art global climate models. The book also contains a fair amount of exercises that makes it suitable as a textbook complement on the subject.
Tropical cyclones are topic that is not appropriately known to the public at large, but climate change has been on the public’s mind since the last decade and a concern that has peaked in the new millennium. Like the television programs of Jean Yves Cousteau the ‘plight of the oceans’, have recent documentaries nurtured a conscio- ness that major climatological changes are in the offing, even have started to develop. The retreat of glaciers on mountain tops and in Polar Regions is ‘being seen’ on ‘the small screen’ and has favored an environmental awareness in all populations that are enjoying an average well-being on Planet Earth. The vivid images on screen of storms, floods, and tsunamis share the fear provoking landscapes of deforestation, desertification and the like. Watching such as this one is seen are voices warning of what over is ‘in store’ if the causative problems are not remedied. Talking and d- cussing are useful, but action must follow. Understanding the full ramifications of climate change on tropical cyclones is a task that will takes several decades. In Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a high probability of major changes in tropical cyclone activity across the various ocean basins is highlighted.
This unique book includes 250 maps related to various factors of meteorology and climate and their effects on the African continent. It provides detailed coverage of fundamentally important issues concerning African meterology, climatology, tropical circulation, rainfall, drought and climate change.
