The Arctic Climate System
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Author(s): M. Serreze and R. Barry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521116008
Format: softback
402pp
Price: £22.99, $43.00
Review Date: 25 August 2009
Review: The land of the midnight sun: the Arctic has held a fascination of a wild region of the Earth. This book covers the history of exploration of the region driven in turns by economics, nationalism and science. The book covers this history of the early explorers up to modern research of the region. This is followed by the basics of the climate and physical nature of the Arctic, leading to a more in depth coverage of such aspects as the atmospheric heat budget, the hydrologic budget, atmosphere-ocean-sea ice interactions, regional climate regimes, and the important aspect of modeling. It is aimed at advanced undergraduates, graduates, and the interested reader. Chapter titles are: The evolution of knowledge about the Arctic and its climate, 2. Physical characteristics and basic climatic features, 3. The basic atmospheric heat budget, 4. The atmospheric circulation, 5. The surface energy budget, 6. Precipitation, net precipitation and river discharge, 7. Arctic ocean-sea ice-climate interactions, 8. Climate regions of the Arctic, 9. Modeling the Arctic climate system, 10. Arctic paleoclimates, 11. Recent climate variability, trends and the future.