Kerry Emanuel

A comprehensive text and reference on tropical meteorology and hurricane science for graduate students and scholarsPhysics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones provides readers with a firm grounding in the observations, theory, and modeling of tropical weather systems and tropical cyclones. How and why do tropical cyclones form? What physics underpins their genesis, intensification, structure, and power? This authoritative and accessible book tackles these and other questions, providing a unifying framework for understanding most tropical weather systems. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the dynamics and thermodynamics of the tropical atmosphere, developing a conceptual foundation through the application of key approximations such as the maintenance of moist adiabatic temperature profiles and critical gradients of density on isobaric surfaces by the Hadley and Walker circulations and monsoons. It treats latent heat release as a fast process that can be absorbed into the definition of entropy and locates the cause of circulations larger than squall lines in radiation and surface heat fluxes. Tested in the classroom, this is an ideal textbook for young scientists and an essential reference for seasoned practitioners.Provides a comprehensive and quantitative entrée to tropical meteorology, offering a framework for understanding most tropical weather systemsCovers the Hadley and Walker circulations, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, monsoons, equatorial waves, easterly waves, squall lines, aggregated convection, and tropical cyclonesIncludes challenge questions in every chapter and codes that run simple models of radiative-convective equilibrium, Hadley and monsoon circulations, linear equatorial models, and tropical cyclonesPrepares students to tackle important questions about the effects of climate change on hurricanesAn illustrations package is available for instructors

An updated edition of a guide to the basic science of climate change, and a call to action.The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—most dramatically since the 1970s. Yet global warming skeptics and ill-informed elected officials continue to dismiss this broad scientific consensus. In this updated edition of his authoritative book, MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel outlines the basic science of global warming and how the current consensus has emerged. Although it is impossible to predict exactly when the most dramatic effects of global warming will be felt, he argues, we can be confident that we face real dangers. Emanuel warns that global warming will contribute to an increase in the intensity and power of hurricanes and flooding and more rapidly advancing deserts. But just as our actions have created the looming crisis, so too might they avert it. Emanuel calls for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gases and criticizes the media for downplaying the dangers of global warming (and, in search of "balance," quoting extremists who deny its existence). This edition has been updated to include the latest climate data, a discussion of the earth's carbon cycle, the warming hiatus of the first decade of this century, the 2017 hurricanes, advanced energy options, the withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, and more. It offers a new foreword by former U.S. Representative Bob Inglis (R-SC), who now works on climate action through his organization RepublicEN.

Presents an overview of hurricanes, with descriptions of how they are formed, how they move, and how they interact with climate, along with a history of some of the most destructive hurricanes of the past.

The monograph is divided into six parts. Part I provides an overview of the problem, including descriptions of cumulus clouds and the effects of ensembles of cumulus clouds on mass, momentum, and vorticity distributions. A review of closure assumptions is also provided. A review of classical convection schemes in widespread use is provided in Part II. The special problems associated with the representation of convection in mesoscale models are discussed in Part III, along with descriptions of some of the commonly used mesoscale schemes. Part IV covers some of the problems associated with the representation of convection in climate models, while the parameterization of slantwise convection is the subject of Part V. The monograph concludes with a single paperbound describing some recent and very promising efforts to use explicit numerical simulations of ensembles of convective clouds to test cumulus representations.