Making Sense of Weather and Climate

November 14, 2016
Physicist Denny (Lights On!) outlines the differences between weather and climate in this educational volume on meteorology and meteorological forecasting. In short, he defines climate as local weather patterns averaged over time. As Denny lays out the particulars, he discusses weather fronts and weather patterns; wind, rain, and fog; and key features of tornadoes, hurricanes, and thunderstorms. According to Denny, weather is “one of the most relevant applications of science,” affecting people’s daily lives in terms of what they wear to work or their means of transportation. Denny’s discussions on cloud formations—there are four basic forms and 10 basic types—prove particularly fascinating. Cirrus clouds, for example, look like “wispy white filaments,” and cumulus clouds resemble “dense white-gray cauliflowers with well-defined edges.” Photographs and illustrations further help readers with identification. Sections on the use of radar and satellite technologies to collect data are interesting, though the narrative predictably lags when talk turns to statistics. Denny sets out to achieve the admirable goal of conveying “something of the intricacy and depth of atmospheric and oceanic physics” to the lay reader; he succeeds in some areas more than others. Illus.