Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers [Paperback]

Roland B. Stull (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0534372147 | ISBN-13: 978-0534372149 | Edition: 2

The Second Edition of Roland Stull's METEOROLOGY FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS lets professors quantify the concepts in Ahren's METEOROLOGY TODAY, SEVENTH EDITION like never before. This book can serve as a technical companion to Ahren's text or as a stand-alone text. It provides the mathematical equations needed for a higher level of understanding of meteorology. The organization is mapped directly to the Ahrens book, making Stull's text a perfect companion. More than a lab manual or workbook, this text contains detailed math and physics that expand upon concepts presented in Ahrens' text, as well as numerous solved problems. This text demonstrates how to use mathematical equations (algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and finite differential equations) to explain the dominant characteristics of certain atmospheric phenomena and processes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roland Stull is Professor and Chair of Atmospheric Sciences in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, and Director of the Geophysical Disaster Computational Fluid Dynamics Center. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for sixteen years before moving to The University of British Columbia in 1995. His early work in boundary-layer meteorology took him to Africa, Europe, and many sites in America for airborne field experiments, while his current research on numerical weather prediction utilizes massively-parallel computer clusters. He has taught courses in 20 different topics, ranging from a survey course on natural disasters with enrollments of 1,000 students, to graduate-level courses on non-linear dynamics and chaos. In addition to METEOROLOGY FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS, he has written an upper-level text, AN INTRODUCTION TO BOUNDARY-LAYER METEOROLOGY (Kluwer, ©1989), which is now in its eighth printing. He is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist, as well as a Certified Flight Instructor in the United States.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Brooks Cole; 2 edition (December 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534372147
• ISBN-13: 978-0534372149
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #347,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent all-encompassing book!, October 26, 2000

By 

"gobnay" (Bellevue, NE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers (Paperback)

This is the most complete introductory-advanced book I have seen to date. It covers many pertinient subjects. Important meteorological concepts are explained in enough detail to satisfy even the more advanced users, but simple enough to give the beginner excellent insight. These concepts do not have to be presented in a difficult fashion to make the author appear intelligent - he makes a bold, simple statement by taking tough concepts and making them understandable to the masses!

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have reference!, March 3, 2001

By 

C. Miner "commuter" (Woodbridge, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers (Paperback)

Want to know a little more about hurricanes? Air pollution? Thunderstorms? Stull presents terrific synopses of many meteorological topics. He doesn't try to be the expert in every sub-specialty in the field; instead, he provides the basic material and encourages the reader to seek additional information from expert books and web sites. I'm currently taking a class in atmospheric transport and diffusion. Stull summarizes the course material and leads me to references I didn't know existed. I'm ordering this book as a reference now and as a starting point for future study.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction, June 10, 2007

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers (Paperback)

As the title of this book implies, it was written for those readers who are not specialists in meteorology but who are interested in a more technical introduction to the subject, and not just one written for the "general audience." The book serves this need very well, and it is a joy to read, even if it is not read cover to cover, as was the case for this reviewer. Each topic, weather it is hurricanes, tornadoes, or turbulence, is presented with many examples, with unit and "reasonableness" checks accompanying these examples. The mathematics is straightforward, with the physics being emphasized with numerous back-of-the-envelope calculations dispersed throughout the text. As in any high-quality book that seeks to explain, and not merely expound, diagrams are used throughout. And most importantly, the author encourages student readers to break out on their own and investigate the various meteorological phenomena without the guidance of the book. This has the effect of encouraging independence of thought and intellectual honesty. This is strongly emphasized in the discussion on climate change, definitely the best chapter in the book in the opinion of this reviewer, wherein the author discusses the ethics of scientific investigation. There have been a few investigators that have violated the canon of ethics that the author outlines, but the state of scientific and technological knowledge at the present time is ample proof that many do not.

The chapter on climate change could in fact be used as an introduction to a more serious investigation of this topic, one that is independent of the political overtones that seem to have poisoned the atmosphere of debate on it. The author discusses climate change in terms of `heuristic models' that he admits are oversimplified, but do serve as a didactic tool to illustrate the main processes and physics. He does allude to `global climate models' but cautions that the large number of approximations involved in these models make them very tentative at best. The Greenhouse effect is discussed via the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and the resulting overestimation of the average temperature leads the author to complicating this scenario via the infrared "atmospheric window", and water-vapor, cloud, and ice-albedo feedbacks. Again, these discussions are simplified and preliminary to more in-depth discussions on climate change that interested readers can pursue. And as in any scientific investigation, they must be accompanied by strong skepticism and a willingness to confront the facts as they are.