Mountain Meteorology. C. David Whiteman. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-513271-8. 355 pp. 2000, $39.95
Mountain environments account for a relatively small and generally sparsely populated fraction of Earth’s surface. In spite of this, interest in environmental phenomena unique to mountains and perimontane regions is very high. This is because many characteristics of mountain environments are highly varied in both space and time (thus lending a fascination that always lies with dynamic phenomena), strongly in contrast to flatland and marine phenomena, often perilous, and always scenically spectacular. This heightened interest is unquestionably true for the atmospheric component of mountain environments. It is thus surprising that there is a relative paucity of comprehensive texts on mountain meteorology. Whiteman’s book is a welcome addition to the meteorological literature. It fills many of the gaps, and integrates material that I would heretofore have looked for in Barry’s rather general text Mountain Weather and Climate, and the more focussed texts of Burrough’s (Mountain weather: A guide for skiers and hillwalkers) and Schroeder and Buck’s Fire Weather: A guide for application of meteorological information to forest fire control operations and Blumen’s edited Atmospheric processes over complex terrain. Whiteman has grasped an opportunity to compile a broad text covering all aspects of mountain meteorology in a general way, and three selected aspects in specific ways. His efforts are to be applauded and enjoyed.
Mountain Meteorology is organized into four parts. Part I is a general introduction to mountain climates, Part II a general introduction to the atmosphere, Part III is a comprehensive treatment of mountain winds. Part IV is what truly sets this book apart from others on the topic in that it deals with three distinct applications of mountain meteorology: Air pollution (written by Whiteman); Fire weather (written by Carl Gorski and Allen Farnsworth) and Aerial Spraying (written by Harold Thistle and John Barry). The intent of the book is explicitly stated in the preface to meet the training needs of U.S. government agents working in the Forest Service, National Weather Service and Army. Part IV is thus in specific response to the needs of those agencies. The book is in fairly large format, and is lavishly illustrated by many photographs and multicolour graphs, diagrams and maps. It is pleasing in appearance, with clear type, glossy paper and engaging layout. In approach the book is descriptive and qualitative. For this reason, readers of Agriculture and Forest Meteorology will find it unsatisfying since the journal (and presumably its readers) is analytical and quantitative in approach.
The book has a specifically stated bias towards (though not exclusively so) examples drawn from North America. While this regional restriction is entirely reasonable, it has lead to some regrettable slips. Figure 1.4 is announced to depict “… pressure patterns over the United States…” in reality the map explicitly depicts Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, and a small corner of Russia. More serious are the figures and tables (Figure 7.2, Wind direction tendencies in Table 6.1 and the box on page 130) that are implicitly globally relevant, but in reality only correct for the Northern Hemisphere.
Whiteman has decided to use a combination of Imperial and Metric measure. This practise leads to awkwardnesses in a number of instances. I would have preferred the uniform use of one system of units, and since this is a text on a scientific subject, would have preferred it to be the metric system.
As already mentioned, the book is richly illustrated. Unfortunately I get the sense that Whiteman had difficulty communicating technical details to the illustrators. The result is figures that are sometimes incorrect (for example the yellow shaded region in Figure 4.7 indicates a temperature inversion in a layer in which temperature decreases with height), sometimes confusing (Figure 11.1 leaves readers unfamiliar with the three dimensional geometry of slope- mountain- and valley winds deeply confused) and sometimes uninterpretable (for example, the unidentified brown and orange arrows in Figure 8.15).
Despite my quibbles, Mountain Meteorology represents a significant advance over available books on the topic, and will be warmly welcomed by its intended audience.
Douw Steyn
Douw Steyn is Professor of Atmospheric Science at The University of British Columbia. His research interests are air pollution meteorology, boundary layer meteorology and mesoscale meteorology.