Tropical Meteorology: An Introduction

Description

This book is designed as an introductory course in Tropical Meteorology for the graduate or advanced level undergraduate student. The material within can be covered in a one-semester course program. The text starts from the global scale-view of the Tropics, addressing the zonally symmetric and asymmetric features of the tropical circulation. It then goes on to progressively smaller spatial and time scales – from the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the Asian Monsoon, down to tropical waves, hurricanes, sea breezes, and tropical squall lines. The emphasis in most chapters is on the observational aspects of the phenomenon in question, the theories regarding its nature and maintenance, and the approaches to its numerical modeling. The concept of scale interactions is also presented as a way of gaining insight into the generation and redistribution of energy for the maintenance of oscillations of a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Front Matter....Pages i-xv The Zonally Averaged Tropical Circulation....Pages 1-15 Zonally Asymmetric Features of the Tropics....Pages 17-33 The Intertropical Convergence Zone....Pages 35-46 Heat Induced Circulation....Pages 47-74 Monsoons....Pages 75-119 Tropical Waves and Tropical Depressions....Pages 121-141 Madden Julian Oscillation....Pages 143-168 Scale Interactions....Pages 169-196 El Niño and Southern Oscillation....Pages 197-220 Diabatic Potential Vorticity Over the Global Tropics....Pages 221-231 Tropical Cloud Ensembles....Pages 233-259 Tropical Boundary Layer....Pages 261-279 Radiative Forcing....Pages 281-297 Dry and Moist Static Stability....Pages 299-315 Hurricane Observations....Pages 317-330 Genesis, Tracks, and Intensification of Hurricanes....Pages 331-359 Modeling and Forecasting of Hurricanes....Pages 361-376 Sea Breeze and Diurnal Change Over the Tropics....Pages 377-397 Tropical Squall Lines and Mesoscale Convective Systems....Pages 399-413 Back Matter....Pages 415-423