Overall Score:
| Target Readership | Secondary | For help with criteria, click here | ||||
| Presentation/Style |  |
|
|
|
||
| Content | |
|
|
 |
||
| Literature | |
|
|
|||
| Originality | |
|
||||
| Overall | |
|
|
|
|
|
Contents:
1 - Our perceptions of climate; 2 - The climate system; 3 - Impacts of varying climate; 4 - Climate for a better society; 5 - The century ahead.
Review:
Climate information abounds and yet, as those involved in climate education are aware, this does not always equate with knowledge. Topics are important and the subject can be fun but there is the need for a sound background. Has anybody not heard of the 'hole in the ozone layer' and yet, at its simplest level, the term is meaningless! What's needed is a comprehensive text to improve basic knowledge.
Which is where this text aims to fit in. The work is divided into 5 sections - the basic themes to be explored. Section one looks at our views on climate. This is divided into 15 double-page spreads each with a different aspect. Here, we start with some history of climate research and look at which climate types can be found, where. This moves on to look at how people affect climate and vice versa, finishing with a study of recent climate change. Section two covers basic climate ideas in the 30 topics covered. We start with energy budget and climate circulation moving on to climate measurement and event study. There follows a comprehensive set of topics all on the theme of key climatic events - storms, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. The next set of pages provides an overview of certain key climatic phenomena e.g. ENSO, blocking highs etc and some of the features that cause them. Finally, the reader gets a series of cases of human impact. Section three follows one of the threads seen previously - the impact on people - and expands upon the idea for this section. Starting with considerations of cost the section moves on to look at key climate cases around the world: drought in Sahel, floods in the US and the impact of El Niño amongst others. There's even examples on freshwater supply. Section four is very much a technical section looking at all the equipment used to gather data and how it can be interpreted. The final section considers how all this might affect us. Topics noted here include global warming, forecasting and adaptation to change.
This book is an excellent introduction to the field. The quality of presentation is extremely high and guaranteed to get even the most reluctant involved. Despite the lack of depth afforded each topic there is a great deal of concise information available. The sheer range of topics covered means that there always something to please each reader. Rapid climate change looks increasingly likely. If we are to deal with it then we need to start with education and the best information for the age range. This is a superb text that needs to be read by all senior secondary students and their teachers - a 'must-buy' for the library.