Abstract
WEATHER is still one of the major factors in war; air warfare especially has resulted in the intensive teaching of meteorology on an unprecedented scale. Teaching requires books, and the last few years have brought a number of excellent text-books, mostly from the United States, where lavishness in printing is still possible. The latest example, by Prof. H. C. Willett, maintains the high standard; it is excellently printed on good paper, well illustrated, and, more important, it is lucid, readable and completely modern. The arrangement follows the usual lines for a text-book of physical and dynamical meteorology (the title "descriptive" is over-modest); it begins with definitions, the composition of the atmosphere and the effects of vertical movements under adiabatic conditions. Chapter 3 deals with the heat balance of the atmosphere and includes a revision of the classic diagram due to W. H. Dines, which embodies the most recent data but is not quite so clear as its prototype. There are two striking vertical cross-sections of the atmosphere over North America from 72° to 18° N., based entirely on radio-sondes.
Descriptive Meteorology
By Prof. Hurd C. Willett. Pp. viii + 310. (New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1944.) 4 dollars.
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BROOKS, C. Descriptive Meteorology. Nature 155, 771 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155771a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155771a0