Basics of atmospheric science

Intended primarily as an introductory textbook for the postgraduate students of atmospheric sciences, geophysics, and meteorology, this book would also be extremely useful to all those engaged in meteorological research. The book, comprising fifteen chapters, provides a detailed treatment of various aspects of atmospheric phenomena and their underlying physical principles. It offers a study of both physical and dynamical aspects of the atmosphere. After discussing the fundamental processes such as origin of the atmosphere, atmospheric thermodynamics, atmospheric radiation and cloud and precipitation formation, the book focuses on equipping students with a thorough understanding of weather and climate. The book also deals with large-scale systems such as waves and synoptic disturbances in lower and mid-altitudes. Global energy balance, general circulation, numerical modelling and chaos in the atmosphere are all well covered in great detail. The book also provides eighty-four worked-out problems and four FORTRAN programs to solve the non-divergent vorticity equation, the shallow water equation as well as the numerical solution of the forced damped pendulum and that of the Lorenz system. Execution of these computer programs will enable the students to understand concepts such as convergence, stability and issues of choosing the necessary step size in space and time, respectively.