Fundamentals of Physics and Chemistry of the Atmosphere

This book originates from the translation of an Italian textbook on the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. The idea for this earlier effort came to me after I published, in 1989, "L' Atmosfera", a popular science book. A few years later I discovered, to my great surprise, that it was adopted as a textbook by a few univer­ sities or university courses. The publication of the book coincided with the intro­ duction in Italy of a university curriculum on Environmental Science and a partial reform of the physics curriculum that allows the teaching of courses like Atmos­ pheric Physics, Meteorology and Environmental Physics. This convinced me to adapt the popular book to a full textbook although the effort turned out to be a much harder job than I thought. The content of the present book is not simply the translation from the Italian be­ cause it has been largely rewritten. Still, it contains basically what I have been teaching in my courses of Atmospheric Physics and Geophysics in the last twenty years. In doing that I have looted many "sacred texts". These may be divided into two categories: there are those like the book by J. M. Wall ace and P. V. Hobbs (see references) wh ich deal mostly with thermodynamics, radiation and dynamics at an elementary level and those like the book by 1. Holton, J. Pedlosky, A. Gill, K. Liu, etc. which are mostly professional texts and in some cases very specific. Front Matter....Pages i-xviii Introduction....Pages 1-17 Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere....Pages 19-37 Radiation: The First Steps....Pages 39-61 Origin and Evolution of the Atmospheres....Pages 63-89 The First Laws of Motion....Pages 91-112 A Few Simple Applications....Pages 113-133 The Atmospheric Motions....Pages 135-163 The Planetary Boundary layer....Pages 165-192 Aerosols and Clouds....Pages 193-217 Waves in the Atmosphere....Pages 219-243 The Data on the Atmospheric Circulation....Pages 245-262 Theories on the General Circulation of the Atmosphere....Pages 263-299 Radiation for Different Uses....Pages 301-333 Simple Climate Models....Pages 335-358 The Application of the Simple Climate Models....Pages 359-391 Chemistry of the Troposphere....Pages 393-429 Dynamics of the Middle Atmosphere....Pages 431-468 Stratospheric Chemistry....Pages 469-505 Chaos in the Atmosphere....Pages 507-524 Back Matter....Pages 525-593 This book is intended mainly as an introductory course to the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere and to climate dynamics. The basics in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, radiation and chemistry are given and aimed at explaining the most interesting problems existing in the study of the atmospheres of the Earth and planets. The originality of the book is that it even offers the computer programs to solve these problems. A particular effort is made to approach the different topics intuitively. Among the themes covered is the most recent evolution concerning the ozone hole, the carbon dioxide problem and the chaos theory This book takes an introductory look at the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere and the climate dynamics. It provides the basics in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, radiation and chemistry and explains the most interesting problems existing in the study of the atmosphere of the Earth and planets. This book also offers the computer programs to solve these problems. Themes covered include the most recent evolution concerning the ozone hole, the carbon dioxide problem, and chaos theory.