Atmospheric Chemistry
Reviewed by Dr W. Bloss
ECG Committee Member
University of Birmingham
ECG Bulletin January 2011
ECG Committee Member
University of Birmingham
ECG Bulletin January 2011
Ann Holloway and Richard Wayne’s new text Atmospheric Chemistry follows on from Wayne’s definitive Chemistry of Atmospheres (3rd edn., Oxford University Press, 2000), an authoritative book familiar to generations of graduate students, researchers and practitioners in atmospheric science. Atmospheric Chemistry covers much of the material from the earlier books, but with updated content, and somewhat less chemical and physical detail – the book is substantially shorter than its 775 page predecessor – with an intended audience of undergraduate or (early) postgraduate students. An integrated approach is taken to key topics in terms of their impacts, for example atmospheric ozone, and climate change.
The book starts with fairly standard chapters on the general composition of the atmosphere, its physical structure (temperature and large-scale dynamics) and an overview of the sources and sinks of atmospheric constituents on a global scale. Simple examples place the budget data in context – for example, that the human population of the UK emits of the order of 109 litres of methane per year... The approaches used to study atmospheric chemistry (observations and models), followed by brief accounts of the general chemistry of atmospheric ozone (with tropospheric and stratospheric behaviour considered together), the principal atmospheric cycles by chemical family (sulphur, carbon, nitrogen etc.) and the influence of life upon the contemporary and palaeo– atmospheric composition.
The real meat of the book comes in the final chapters, covering the chemistry of the troposphere, the stratosphere, and man’s adverse influences on the atmosphere, which ranges from “classical” issues such as acid rain and ground level ozone production through to climate change. Much of the material here is drawn from the latest (2007) assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), so broadly reflects our current understanding. This section focuses upon the physical drivers of climate change, but includes some discussion of likely impacts and the ongoing political and legislative debates, concluding with the Copenhagen summit of late 2009; the integrated approach helps the reader understand both the issues of basic science and practical implementation that must lie behind future climate negotiations.
Compared with Chemistry of Atmospheres, the book includes many more figures, including colour, and is in general more attractive and much more accessible to the lay reader, but retains the engaging and elegant writing style. The cost for the reduced length is of course the loss of quantitative detail for certain topics of interest to those pursuing the subject in depth, for example ozone photochemistry and (aspects of) planetary atmospheres, but the extent of coverage is judged well for the target audience. Overall the book is likely to find wide use by undergraduates and those embarking upon postgraduate study in relevant fields, and in providing a broader context to the air quality work performed by local authorities and other bodies.
Atmospheric Chemistry
Ann Holloway and Richard Wayne
Royal Society of Chemistry Cambridge, UK, 2010
xiii + 271 pp, ISBN 978-1-84755-807-7
£25.99 (hardcover)
The book starts with fairly standard chapters on the general composition of the atmosphere, its physical structure (temperature and large-scale dynamics) and an overview of the sources and sinks of atmospheric constituents on a global scale. Simple examples place the budget data in context – for example, that the human population of the UK emits of the order of 109 litres of methane per year... The approaches used to study atmospheric chemistry (observations and models), followed by brief accounts of the general chemistry of atmospheric ozone (with tropospheric and stratospheric behaviour considered together), the principal atmospheric cycles by chemical family (sulphur, carbon, nitrogen etc.) and the influence of life upon the contemporary and palaeo– atmospheric composition.
The real meat of the book comes in the final chapters, covering the chemistry of the troposphere, the stratosphere, and man’s adverse influences on the atmosphere, which ranges from “classical” issues such as acid rain and ground level ozone production through to climate change. Much of the material here is drawn from the latest (2007) assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), so broadly reflects our current understanding. This section focuses upon the physical drivers of climate change, but includes some discussion of likely impacts and the ongoing political and legislative debates, concluding with the Copenhagen summit of late 2009; the integrated approach helps the reader understand both the issues of basic science and practical implementation that must lie behind future climate negotiations.
Compared with Chemistry of Atmospheres, the book includes many more figures, including colour, and is in general more attractive and much more accessible to the lay reader, but retains the engaging and elegant writing style. The cost for the reduced length is of course the loss of quantitative detail for certain topics of interest to those pursuing the subject in depth, for example ozone photochemistry and (aspects of) planetary atmospheres, but the extent of coverage is judged well for the target audience. Overall the book is likely to find wide use by undergraduates and those embarking upon postgraduate study in relevant fields, and in providing a broader context to the air quality work performed by local authorities and other bodies.
Atmospheric Chemistry
Ann Holloway and Richard Wayne
Royal Society of Chemistry Cambridge, UK, 2010
xiii + 271 pp, ISBN 978-1-84755-807-7
£25.99 (hardcover)
