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Principles of Planetary Climate
"This book introduces the reader to all the basic physical building blocks of climate needed to understand the present and past climate of Earth, the climates of Solar System planets, and the climates of extrasolar planets. These building blocks include thermodynamics, infrared radiative transfer, scattering, surface heat transfer and various processes governing the evolution of atmospheric composition. Nearly four hundred problems are supplied to help consolidate the reader's understanding, and to lead the reader towards original research on planetary climate. This textbook is invaluable for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in atmospheric science, Earth and planetary science, astrobiology, and physics. It also provides a superb reference text for researchers in these subjects, and is very suitable for academic researchers trained in physics or chemistry who wish to rapidly gain enough background to participate in the excitement of the new research opportunities opening in planetary climate"--
674 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 9, 2023
A touching aspect of present-day scientific endeavor can be perceived in how, as the looming destruction of the world proceeds apace, we are coming to know and to understand our threatened planetary home more closely than ever. The seas and continents have been mapped down into minute detail, their contents inventoried and the rates of ongoing geological cycles and changes measured with quantitative precision. Astonishing progress has been achieved not only on the empirical side but also on the theoretical front. Since the 1960’s, climate science has emerged as a discipline in its own right, for which the Nobel prize has been awarded in 2021.
If one be curious to acquire facility with the fundamental physical principles underlying this enterprise, where to turn? One could scarcely do better than the present textbook by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a tenured professor of physics at Oxford University, entitled Principles of Planetary Climate (Cambridge University Press, 2010). A monumental work spanning 652 pages, it brings the student at an advanced undergraduate level up to the current state of the art, starting from elementary principles. A nice feature of Pierrehumbert’s treatment is that he wants to develop planetary climate as a scientific discipline in full generality, covering, that is, not only the earth but also the other planets and moons in the solar system and even the recently discovered exoplanets circling around other stars. For indeed, it does throw much light on the prevailing physical processes to consider how they play out under other conditions, closer to or farther away from the sun, with differing atmospheric compositions etc. Another good point is the author’s constant attention to climatological history. Again, taking the broad view not only helps illuminate the present but also can be fascinating in its own right. If one wishes diligently to comprehend the detailed workings of ongoing cycles and trends, there can be no substitute for confronting the historical record, as it is being disclosed with ever greater thoroughness by empirical research, and studying physically based models that seek to reconstruct the underlying mechanisms.
Pierrehumbert begins in chapter one with an extended overview entitled ‘Big Questions’. Here, he introduces us to the issues that have fascinated researchers in the field ever since its origins in the mid-nineteenth century when the ices ages were first discovered: the Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles, Holocene climate variation, the so-called Faint Young Sun paradox and its implications for the habitability of the earth, a comparison of earth, Venus and Mars which raises the hothouse/icehouse dichotomy, the phenomenon of the snowball earth and, what is of current concern to everyone, the recent trend of global warming. This reviewer appreciates the author’s style, gentle and prolix. He does far more than sketch the bare minimum but offers instructive observations and information on the technical tools of the trade, such as the various kinds of proxies one employs to restore past climates.
Chapters two through five lay out the physical foundations of climate science in thermodynamics, blackbody radiation and radiation balance in planetary atmospheres, radiative transfer in temperature-stratified atmospheres and lastly the theory of scattering of radiation by molecules. This is not the place to learn these subjects from the ground up as would an undergraduate majoring in physics; rather, just enough of the fundamentals is explained so that one can follow how they relate to planetary climate in particular. Thus, Pierrehumbert does develop a few simple quantitative models (of adiabatic processes in one-component condensable atmospheres or multi-component mixtures of condensable with non-condensable gases, ice-albedo feedback, optically thin atmospheres, plane-parallel radiative transfer, the gray gas model), and even writes out and solves a few simple differential equations. The technical level is not very high compared to what one would expect of an undergraduate physics major, though, but the interest here consists in what can be done with such basic concepts to understand non-trivial aspects of real climate systems. Thus, one will appreciate in chapter four, for instance, a nice derivation of the runaway greenhouse effect and stratospheric cooling.
Chapters six through eight apply these foundational concepts to further aspects of the climate: the surface energy balance; models of turbulent exchange; fluxes, mass balance and melting; precipitation and simple models of sea ice in equilibrium in chapter six; the implications of the distribution of incident solar radiation for the variation of temperature with season and latitude, and the effect of long-term variation of orbital parameters in chapter seven; and the evolution of the atmosphere through chemical reactions, silicate weathering and escape of atmospheric constituents into outer space in chapter eight. The final chapter nine introduces some elementary considerations one should bear in mind in order to move on to dynamics of planetary climate, an advanced subject that the present text has not space to get into, and closes with a listing of several open questions – one gets a sense of the excitement the author feels to be involved in a developing field.
Appended to every chapter is a set of well-crafted homework exercises. These will aid comprehension by posing questions meant not merely to regurgitate material covered in the previous chapter but to stimulate thought on the part of the student, whom the author helps along with generous hints. The problems range from simple checking of the numerical values of parameters to performing full-blown quantitative calculations, for which Python scripts and the requisite data sets are provided. A minor irritant: the displayed equations in the text are rather poorly typeset, at least to one accustomed to textbooks in mathematical physics, which does interfere with their readability.
Warmly recommended. If one already has a degree in physics, this text will make for easy but rewarding reading. This reviewer cannot say from direct experience what it would be like to learn here the physical material for the first time, but Pierrehumbert’s pedagogical instincts appear to be sound. It is a pleasant thought that there might yet be a handful left in our day who love our natural world enough to learn about and to contemplate its workings, rather than merely to be bent on exploiting its resources to the maximum extent possible while it still lasts.
If one be curious to acquire facility with the fundamental physical principles underlying this enterprise, where to turn? One could scarcely do better than the present textbook by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a tenured professor of physics at Oxford University, entitled Principles of Planetary Climate (Cambridge University Press, 2010). A monumental work spanning 652 pages, it brings the student at an advanced undergraduate level up to the current state of the art, starting from elementary principles. A nice feature of Pierrehumbert’s treatment is that he wants to develop planetary climate as a scientific discipline in full generality, covering, that is, not only the earth but also the other planets and moons in the solar system and even the recently discovered exoplanets circling around other stars. For indeed, it does throw much light on the prevailing physical processes to consider how they play out under other conditions, closer to or farther away from the sun, with differing atmospheric compositions etc. Another good point is the author’s constant attention to climatological history. Again, taking the broad view not only helps illuminate the present but also can be fascinating in its own right. If one wishes diligently to comprehend the detailed workings of ongoing cycles and trends, there can be no substitute for confronting the historical record, as it is being disclosed with ever greater thoroughness by empirical research, and studying physically based models that seek to reconstruct the underlying mechanisms.
Pierrehumbert begins in chapter one with an extended overview entitled ‘Big Questions’. Here, he introduces us to the issues that have fascinated researchers in the field ever since its origins in the mid-nineteenth century when the ices ages were first discovered: the Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles, Holocene climate variation, the so-called Faint Young Sun paradox and its implications for the habitability of the earth, a comparison of earth, Venus and Mars which raises the hothouse/icehouse dichotomy, the phenomenon of the snowball earth and, what is of current concern to everyone, the recent trend of global warming. This reviewer appreciates the author’s style, gentle and prolix. He does far more than sketch the bare minimum but offers instructive observations and information on the technical tools of the trade, such as the various kinds of proxies one employs to restore past climates.
Chapters two through five lay out the physical foundations of climate science in thermodynamics, blackbody radiation and radiation balance in planetary atmospheres, radiative transfer in temperature-stratified atmospheres and lastly the theory of scattering of radiation by molecules. This is not the place to learn these subjects from the ground up as would an undergraduate majoring in physics; rather, just enough of the fundamentals is explained so that one can follow how they relate to planetary climate in particular. Thus, Pierrehumbert does develop a few simple quantitative models (of adiabatic processes in one-component condensable atmospheres or multi-component mixtures of condensable with non-condensable gases, ice-albedo feedback, optically thin atmospheres, plane-parallel radiative transfer, the gray gas model), and even writes out and solves a few simple differential equations. The technical level is not very high compared to what one would expect of an undergraduate physics major, though, but the interest here consists in what can be done with such basic concepts to understand non-trivial aspects of real climate systems. Thus, one will appreciate in chapter four, for instance, a nice derivation of the runaway greenhouse effect and stratospheric cooling.
Chapters six through eight apply these foundational concepts to further aspects of the climate: the surface energy balance; models of turbulent exchange; fluxes, mass balance and melting; precipitation and simple models of sea ice in equilibrium in chapter six; the implications of the distribution of incident solar radiation for the variation of temperature with season and latitude, and the effect of long-term variation of orbital parameters in chapter seven; and the evolution of the atmosphere through chemical reactions, silicate weathering and escape of atmospheric constituents into outer space in chapter eight. The final chapter nine introduces some elementary considerations one should bear in mind in order to move on to dynamics of planetary climate, an advanced subject that the present text has not space to get into, and closes with a listing of several open questions – one gets a sense of the excitement the author feels to be involved in a developing field.
Appended to every chapter is a set of well-crafted homework exercises. These will aid comprehension by posing questions meant not merely to regurgitate material covered in the previous chapter but to stimulate thought on the part of the student, whom the author helps along with generous hints. The problems range from simple checking of the numerical values of parameters to performing full-blown quantitative calculations, for which Python scripts and the requisite data sets are provided. A minor irritant: the displayed equations in the text are rather poorly typeset, at least to one accustomed to textbooks in mathematical physics, which does interfere with their readability.
Warmly recommended. If one already has a degree in physics, this text will make for easy but rewarding reading. This reviewer cannot say from direct experience what it would be like to learn here the physical material for the first time, but Pierrehumbert’s pedagogical instincts appear to be sound. It is a pleasant thought that there might yet be a handful left in our day who love our natural world enough to learn about and to contemplate its workings, rather than merely to be bent on exploiting its resources to the maximum extent possible while it still lasts.
September 19, 2023
Very good textbook to get a comprehensive understanding of planetary climate science. Lots of exercises and problems to reinforce the learning, and generally good explanations. If you want to see how climate science comes to its conclusion about Earth, Venus, Mars, etc., this book will provide you everything you need to get a basic understanding of the arguments used, and elements of theory to explain their state of climate. (The book doesn't cover fluid dynamics, which the author is completely upfront about. It's pretty impressive how far you can go without having to determine the complicated fluid motions to explain a planet's temperature and pressure profiles and energy transport.)
July 2, 2025
Pleasant read, but the format is really big (and heavy), it's written kind of small with huge chunks of text, all in all not very easy to navigate.
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April 23, 2023QB603 .A85 P54 2010 AOSS Library
January 20, 2011
The author let everyone watch on line as he wrote this book, making the text available in pdf format as each chapter or revision was completed. I've had the HB for less than 24 hours, but have been reading the pdfs for several years. This text is wonderful for people interested in delving into climate science. A lot can be learned from other books, say, on atmospheric science (Petty, A First Course in Atmospheric Physics) and planetary science (de Pater, Planetary Sciences), but this book puts in all together. The author has an engaging writing style as well.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews