An Introduction To Three-Dimensional Climate Modeling

Most descriptions of climatic modeling assume readers to have a great deal of previous knowledge about atmospheric or ocean dynamics, but Washington (US National Center for Atmospheric Research) and Parkinson (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) address readers in the atmospheric science, geography, geology, hydrology, oceanography, and ecology who may be only vaguely aware of climate models. They explain what the models are attempting to simulate, how they are constructed, what they have succeeded in simulating, and how they are being used for evaluation and prediction. Annotation c2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Warren Washington has been a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) since 1963 and is head of the Climate Change Research Section in the Climate and Global Dynamics Division at NCAR. He is the Chair of the Presidential appointed National Science Board and he is an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric science and climate research, who serves on the Secretary of Energy’s Department of Energy Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academies of Science Coordinating Committee on Global Change, and distinguished alumni of Oregon State and Pennsylvania State Universities. He is a fellow of American Meteorology Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1994, Dr. Washington served as President of American Meteorological Society.Claire L. Parkinson has been a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center since 1978, with a research emphasis on polar sea ice and climate change. She is also Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite mission, aimed at improved understanding of the coupled atmosphere/ocean/land/ice system, has done field work in both polar regions, and has written books on satellite Earth observations and the history of science. She has a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University and has served on committees for NASA, NOAA, and the National Academy of Sciences. She is a Fellow of both the American Meteorological Society and Phi Beta Kappa and received a NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2003 and the Goldthwait Polar Medal from Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center in 2004.