Meteorology/Atmospheric Physics Textbook for Physics Undergrad Seniors

[magiladd]

Hi! I am looking for a (recent - about 2020 or sooner but anything is welcome) meteorology textbook that actually explains things in detail. I am specifically interested in tornadoes like everyone else, but I have a solid physics background and want to actually learn about them. Does anyone know of some higher-level textbooks that talk about this? Or other resources that explain atmospheric science?

Everything I find online is for children, and my university doesn't have a meteorology or atmospheric division so I can't ask anyone here. I would love any advice or recommendations! Thank you!

 

[vanhees71]

I'm not sure, whether this is one is of the type you look for. It's about using hydrodynamics to the physics of the atmosphere. It's a book grown from lecture notes for undergrads in meteorology at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany:

U. Achatz, Atmospheric Dynamics, Springer (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63941-2

 

[berkeman]

my university doesn't have a meteorology or atmospheric division so I can't ask anyone here. I would love any advice or recommendations!

Maybe find some universities that do have such classes and programs, and look at the class descriptions to see what textbooks they are using. Then you can use your university library to borrow the books (either they will have them or they can use inter-library loans).

 

[pasmith]

Hi! I am looking for a (recent - about 2020 or sooner but anything is welcome) meteorology textbook that actually explains things in detail. I am specifically interested in tornadoes like everyone else, but I have a solid physics background and want to actually learn about them. Does anyone know of some higher-level textbooks that talk about this? Or other resources that explain atmospheric science?

Everything I find online is for children, and my university doesn't have a meteorology or atmospheric division so I can't ask anyone here. I would love any advice or recommendations! Thank you!

Searching the Cambridge University Press website for "tornado" turned up these:

Hakim, G., & Patoux, J. (2021). Weather: A Concise Introduction (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108963688
https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/weather/42B4BEA117A04B14E165DE0A18FBEBB4Trapp, R. (2013). Mesoscale-Convective Processes in the Atmosphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139047241 https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...e-atmosphere/0314457B99ACE8AEFB5D0520A23A8F49

 

[jasonRF]

When I was in school (~30 years ago) the atmospheric science department used Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology by Holton for their 3rd year course on fluids. It is basically at the level of Griffith's book on electrodynamics so should be very accessible. I don't recall it having much material on hurricanes or tornados, but it seemed to be a reasonable text to learn the basics. I never took the course, but I found the book somewhat useful as a supplement to a grad-level planetary atmospheres & ionospheres course I took that did not follow any textbook.

jason

 

[berkeman]

supplement to a grad-level planetary atmospheres & ionospheres course I took

Interesting -- what does a PhD EE like yourself take such a class for? General interest, or did it apply to your PhD studies in some way? Just curious...

 

[jasonRF]

Interesting -- what does a PhD EE like yourself take such a class for? General interest, or did it apply to your PhD studies in some way? Just curious...

I was in a research group that primarily studied the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere, although some work was also in upper atmospheric physics and lightning. There are a number of such groups around the US, some of which are/were in EE departments (Stanford, Illinois, Michigan, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn State, etc). Not sure what the history is of the various groups around the country, but I think the one I was in started with plasma physicists that had been working on vacuum tubes moving over to study radiowave propagation in the ionosphere when solid-state devices started to become more important than tubes.

jason