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Encyclopedia of Natural Disasters series is essential for students who require information on the fundamentals of extreme weather systems and their present and future environmental impact.
Targeted for students, teachers, and general readers, this updated and expanded Encyclopedia of Natural Disasters series is a collection of compelling illustrated books on the extreme weather conditions that threaten our environment and population. Michael Allaby, a noted weather and climate writer, offers an authoritative yet lively text that is enhanced by impressive line illustrations evoking the far-reaching effects of treacherous weather activity.
VOLUMES IN THE SET INCLUDE
• Blizzards
• A Change in the Weather
• A Chronology of Weather
• Droughts
• Floods
• Fog, Smog & Poisoned Rain
• Hurricanes
• TornadoesBlizzards
Blizzards, Revised Edition is a fascinating examination of this weather phenomenon and its impact on extensive areas of our planet. While blizzard is a word we may associate with the Far North or Antarctica, recent storms in China, Europe, and the United States show that blizzards can happen in lower latitudes and with serious consequences. Substantially updated since its original publication six years ago, this revised edition of Blizzards features information on
air mass movements
safety and protection
snowstorms
continental and maritime climates
freezing rain and freezing fog
the Great Ice Age
historic blizzards
wind chill and snow chill
Contents: CONTINENTAL AND MARITIME CLIMATES • Seasons and the tilting Earth • Adiabatic cooling and warming • Movements of air and water • General circulation of the atmosphere • Continental and maritime climates • Calculating continentality and oceanicity • MOVEMENTS OF AIR MASSES IN WINTER • Cold air, high pressure • Air masses • Air masses and the weather they bring • When air masses move • When air masses meet • Distribution of pressure • Weather fronts • Jet stream • Why warm air can hold more moisture than cold air can • ICE CAPS, GLACIERS, AND ICEBERGS • Where glaciers form • The polar ice caps • How glaciers move • Why the Arctic is warmer than the Antarctic • Ice shelves and icebergs • North Atlantic Deep Water and the Great Conveyor • When the conveyor weakens or fails • READING PAST WEATHER FROM ICE SHEETS • Reading tree rings and ice cores • Lake Vostok. Europa. and Ganymede • Vostok GISP, and GRIP • Oxygen isotopes • Ice sheets and sea levels • Trapped greenhouse gases • Dust • Volcanic ash • Sediments, pollen, corals, and beetles • POLAR DESERTS, WHERE BLIZZARDS ARE COMMON • Blizzards faced by explorers • The difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic • Deserts, despite being covered with snow • Gales and extratropical hurricanes • LOUIS AGASSIZ AND THE GREAT ICE AGE • The puzzle of the erratic rocks • Agassiz and his vacations on the ice • Glaciers flow • Uniformitarians and catastrophists • Not one ice age, but many • Pleistocene glacials and intergiacials • Why do ice ages happen? • The Little Ice Age • SNOWBLITZ • Do ice sheets form from the top down or bottom up? • Albedo • At the edge of the snow • Positive feedback • Could it happen? • SNOWBALL EARTH • Ancient glacial deposits • Continental drift and plate tectonics • Could it happen? • The thaw leading to “Greenhouse Earth” • The cap dolostones • Snowball or “slushball”? • SNOW LINES • Dry air and moist air • Effect of the shape of a mountain • Mountain winds • Where snow is most likely • WHERE BLIZZARDS OCCUR • Cold climates are dry climates • Spring blizzards • The conditions that produce snowstorms • European blizzards • The Coriolis effect • GALES AND WHY THEY HAPPEN • How Torricelli weighed air and invented the barometer • Wind force and Admiral Beaufort • Why air pressure varies • Air does not move in straight lines • Christoph Buys Ballot and his law • HAIL, SLEET, SNOW • Mass, drag, and terminal velocity • Evaporation, condensation, and the formation of clouds • Humidity • Why drops of water are spherical • Why some fall faster than others • Rain, sleet, or snow? • Hail • FREEZING RAIN AND FREEZING FOG • Freezing nuclei • Supercooling • Rain that freezes on contact • Fog and frost • Freezing fog • WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WATER FREEZES AND ICE MELTS • Structure of the molecule • What happens when water is heated • The discovery of latent heat • Melting, freezing, and the change between gas and solid The universal solvent • WILSON BENTLEY, THE MAN WHO PHOTOGRAPHED SNOWFLAKES • The snowflake man • Studying snowflakes • Classification • SNOWFLAKES AND TYPES OF SNOW • How ice crystals grow • Why most snowflakes have six points, but each one is unique • Temperature affects the shape • Availability of atmospheric moisture • Inside the cloud • Once fallen, snow changes • AVALANCHES • The Force of moving snow • Kinetic energy • How an avalanche begins • Types of avalanches • Snow and wind • Safety • COLD AIR AND WARM WATER • Specific heat capacity • Radiation and blackbodies • Specific heat capacity and blackbodies • Conductivity, albedo, and transparency • Influence of oceans • SNOWSTORMS, DRIFTING, AND BLIZZARDS • Wind and the city • Urban climate • Snowdrifts • Drifts are dangerous • HEAVY SNOWSTORMS AND WHAT CAUSES THEM • Stability and lapse rates • Air pressure, highs, and lows • Conditions inside the cloud • Lightning • Charge separation • Precipitation • THE LAKE EFFECT • When air crosses water • Where the snow falls, and how much • Not only the Great Lakes • Lake effects in Europe and Asia • Advantages as well as disadvantages • COLD WAVES • The Great Cold Wave of February 1899 • Dangers of the cold • The polar front jet stream • Drawing warm air north and cold air south • Blocking • ICE STORMS • Research that led to rainmaking • Cloud seeding • Icing at ground level • Effects of an ice storm • WIND CHILL, FROSTBITE, HYPOTHERMIA, AND SNOW CHILL • Calculating wind chill • Dangers of exposure • Frostbite • Hypothermia • Snow chill • WHITEOUT • Scattering and reflecting light • What you should do • BLIZZARDS OF THE PAST • The 1888 American winter • Spring blizzards • Winter storms • The Northeast Blizzard of 1978 • The 19% storms • Blizzards in Europe • The 19% storms reach Europe • WILL CLIMATE CHANGE BRING FEWER BLIZZARDS? • Why worry? • The enhanced greenhouse effect • How the atmosphere absorbs heat • Tracing the emissions • The solar spectrum • Estimating the effects • Thermohaline circulation • FORECASTING BLIZZARDS • Problems of scale • Weather stations, balloons, and satellites • Forecasting • Warnings • SAFETY • Lay in supplies • IF you have to drive • When you hear the warning • Outdoors • IF the car is stuck • Appendixes • Beaufort Wind Scale • Avalanche classes • SI units and conversions • Prefixes used with SI units • Bibliography and lurther reading • Index.ISBN - 9788130921587
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