Understanding Weather and Climate (6e)

Rising interest in climate change and severe weather phenomena are driving up enrollment in today’s meteorology courses — yet this fast-paced, one-semester curriculum is packed with complex physical concepts that often challenge students. In Aguado/Burt’s Understanding Weather & Climate, a first-rate textbook combines inspired technology tutorials to engage students in learning about atmospheric behavior. The authors use everyday occurrences to illustrate meteorology and climatology. Dynamic illustrations from the book come to life in the new, fully integrated MyMeteorologyLab website, where students have access to resources such animated tutorials, videos, and satellite loops of atmospheric phenomena. While staying true to the text’s rigorous and quantitative approach, the Sixth Edition incorporates the latest science, the most relevant issues, and new media to both teach and visualize the toughest topics, always while maintaining focus on the student.

I. ENERGY AND MASS
1. Composition and Structure of the Atmosphere
2. Solar Radiation and the Seasons
3. Energy Balance and Temperature
4. Atmospheric Pressure and Wind

II. WATER IN THE ATMOSPHERE
5. Atmospheric Moisture
6. Cloud Development and Forms
7. Precipitation Processes

III. DISTRIBUTION AND MOVEMENT OF AIR
8. Atmospheric Circulation and Pressure Distributions
9. Air Masses and Fronts

IV. DISTURBANCES
10. Mid-Latitude Cyclones
11. Lightning, Thunder, and Tornadoes
12. Tropical Storms and Hurricanes

V. HUMAN ACTIVITIES AND SPECIAL TOPICS
13. Weather Forecasting and Analysis
14. Human Effects: Air Pollution and Heat Islands

VI. CURRENT, PAST AND FUTURE CLIMATES
15. Earth's Climates
16. Climate Changes: Past and Future

VII. SPECIAL TOPICS AND APPENDICES
17. Atmospheric Optics

Appendix A: Unit of Measurement and Conversions
Appendix B: The Standard Atmosphere
Appendix C: Weather Map Symbols
Appendix D: Weather Extremes

• NEW! Big Picture part-opener spreads connect key concepts, visuals, learning goals, and media from the chapters.
• NEW! Learning Outcomes are integrated into the chapter-opening spreads to help students organize and prioritize their study of chapter content.
• NEW! Checkpoint in-line questions (6-10 per chapter) offer conceptual “speed bumps” or reading questions after major sections to help students make sure that they understand or can apply the material they’ve just read.
• NEW and UPDATED Focus On feature essays better emphasize both Severe & Hazardous Weather and Aviation content to accommodate aviation departments and courses where severe and hazardous weather is of special interest. For example, Chapter 5 has a new Focus On Aviation box on the topic of Icing, and Chapter 11 has a new Focus On Aviation box titled “Lightning and Aircraft.”
• UPDATES to Focus on the Environment feature essays amplify coverage of environmental issues and themes of sustainability. Examples include Depletion of the Ozone Layer, Wildfires, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• NEW! World meteorology reference maps are now presented on the inside front and back covers of the book.
• NEW! MyMeteorologyLab.com website:

• NEW Interactive Tutorials (Vertical & Horizontal Pressure Variations, Earth’s Climate)
• Updates to 14 of the 16 interactive Tutorials; two are entirely new
  
• NEW MapMaster™ interactive maps
• NEW Carbone’s Exercises for Weather & Climate, Eighth Edition—popular interactive media from new edition of our best selling exercise manual
• NEW Geoscience Animations with assessments that help students visualize and be assessed on their understanding of complex physical processes.
• NEW Weather in Motion video resources offer more current, real world visualizations of meteorology
• Chapter Tests
• Quantitative Exercises
• Critical Thinking Quizzes
• MapMaster quizzes
• Web links
• Glossary flashcards
• “In the News” RSS feeds
• Pearson eText.
• NEW online only Instructor Resource Manual, including answers to end-of-chapter material.
  

• Did You Know? inserts throughout the book discuss interesting and unexpected facts.
• Physical Principles features are more mathematical in nature than the rest of the text, and accommodate students who have a more quantitative interest in the topic.
• Focus on the Environment feature essays examine environmental issues and themes of sustainability.
• Focus on Aviation feature essays examine meteorological impacts on aviation.
• Focus on Severe Weather feature essays explore severe and hazardous weather phenomena.
• Special Interest feature essays treat interesting topics related to the chapter themes, without interrupting the main narrative.
• Forecasting feature essays describe how the principles discussed in the chapter can be used in forecasting and often include simple “rules of thumb” that help students make their own forecasts.
• Consistent pedagogy includes Learning Outcomes, Checkpoints, Summaries, Key Terms, Review Questions, Critical-Thinking Questions, and Problems & Exercises.
• A pull-out Cloud Chart in the back of book offers students a quick reference to cloud types and their significance.
• The text’s website at MyMeteorologyLab.com offers a range of media-rich tools for student self-study and/or customizable formal assessment and course management. Features include:

• 16 interactive tutorials that help students visualize atmospheric processes with a high degree of interactivity and quizzing. Tutorial quiz scores are automatically recorded in the gradebook of MyMeteorologyLab’s robust course management system.
• Numerous Weather in Motion video resources that offer more current, real world visualizations of meteorology
• Access codes that can be packaged with new copies of the textbook, or may be purchased stand-alone at www.MyMeteorologyLab.com.

Ed Aguado is Professor of Geography( in the Department of Geography(of San Diego State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison, and his M.A. and B.A. from the UCLA. His research interests are in the precipitation and hydrology of western U.S. mountains. He regularly teaches introductory and advanced meteorology, climatology, and physical geography, and often serves as a consultant and expert witness on climatology and weather.

Jim Burt is Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography of the University of Wisconsin—Madison. He received his Ph.D. from the UCLA. His research interests are in physical geography, climatology, quantitative methods, and geovisualization. Burt recently served as the co-principal investigator for SoLIM (Soil Land Inference Model) for soil mapping, using recent developments in GIS, artificial intelligence, and information representation theory, and he is currently involved in new NSF funded research using GIS. He regularly teaches advanced geography and atmospheric science courses.