The AMS Weather Book: The Ultimate Guide to America<U+0080>́<U+0099>s Weather

America has one of the most varied and dynamic weather systems in the world. Every year, the Gulf Coast is battered by hurricanes, the Great Plains are ravaged by tornados, the Midwest is pummeled by blizzards, and the temperature in the Southwest reaches a sweltering 120 degrees. Extreme weather can be a matter of life and death, but even when it is pleasant ́ 72 degrees and sunny ́ weather is still central to the lives of all Americans. Indeed, it ́ s hard to imagine a topic of greater collective interest. Whether we want to know if we should close the storm shutters or just carry an umbrella to work, we turn to forecasts. But few of us really understand the science behind them. All that changes with The AMS Weather Book. The most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to our weather and our atmosphere, it is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to understand how hurricanes form, why tornados twirl, or even why the sky is cerulean blue. Written by esteemed science journalist and former USA Today weather editor Jack Williams, The AMS Weather Book covers everything from daily weather patterns to air pollution and global warming and explores the stories of people coping with severe weather and those who devote their lives to understanding the atmosphere, oceans, and climate. Words alone, of course, are not adequate to explain many meteorological concepts, so The AMS Weather Book is filled with engaging full-color graphics that explain such concepts as why winds blow in a particular direction, how Doppler weather radar works, what happens inside hurricanes, how clouds create wind and snow, and what ́ s really affecting the earth ́ s climate. For Weather Channel junkies, amateur meteorologists, and storm chasers alike, The AMS Weather Book is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to better understand how weather works and how it affects our lives This book is written for anyone who is curious and excited about weatherand how the atmosphere works. Instead of writing a textbook that covers onlyhard science, we developed a book that focuses on the human side of the atmospheric sciences. It includes stories about people coping with weatherevents or working to improve understanding or forecasts of them, as well as anumber of brief profiles of men and women whose professional lives focus on weather, oceanography, or climate. We also have123 explanatory graphics, because the old sayingabout a picture being worth a thousand words applies to many scientific concepts.The book uses a historical approach to exploretopics, ranging from the blue sky in Chapter 1 tothe ozone hole in Chapter 12, because the story ofhow scientists came to understand a phenomenoncan help you understand it. With a subject as big as Earth’s atmosphere andoceans, we cannot go into immense detail on themany related topics addressed. To help you furtherthese explorations, this book’s accompanying Website at http://www.amsweatherbook.com/ haslinks to other sites and recommendations for booksand articles that further examine the topics in thisbook, as well as related topics that the book doesn’t cover. Information usually found in footnotes isalso on the Web site. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-19 Earth’s Energy....Pages 20-45 Winds and Currents....Pages 46-69 Water....Pages 70-95 Global Patterns....Pages 96-123 Earth Observers....Pages 124-149 Weather Forecasting....Pages 150-175 Thunderstorms and Tornadoes....Pages 176-203 Mesoscale Weather....Pages 204-227 Tropical Cyclones....Pages 228-257 Under the Radar....Pages 258-275 Weather and Climate Threats....Pages 276-304 Back Matter....Pages 305-316