Entry tags:

climatology, geography, meteorology

Dictionary of Global Climate Change
Dictionary of Global Climate Change

Compiled by W. John Maunder as a contribution of the Stockholm Environment Institute to the Second World Climate Conference.

Published by Chapman & Hall, 1992.

This is a 6" by 9" clothbound book running to 240 pages plus a foreword, preface, acknowledgments, list of sources, and abbreviations and acronyms.

A straightforward dictionary of terms relating to the study of climate change, this modest-sized book does a good job of communicating its subject matter in somewhat dense but clear and jargon-free prose. For a sense of what it covers, here are the first fifteen items in the "D" sequence, not including "See" references:

• D-layer
  
• daily (diurnal) range of temperatures
  
• daily maximum/minimum temperatures
  
• data processing
  
• Data Rescue Programme (DARE)
  
• deforestation
  
• deforestation and reforestation (IPCC WG I: Policymaker's Summary)
  
• degree days
  
• dendrochronology
  
• denudation
  
• desert
  
• desertification
  
• detection of the human-induced greenhouse effect on global mean temperatures
  
• deterministic model
  
• deterministic system
  

Entries range in length from one sentence to about a page, with most entries coming in on the shorter end. Here is a sample:

hypsithermal period
The period about 4,000 to 8,000 years ago when the Earth was apparently a few degrees warmer than it is now. More rainfall occurred in most of the subtropical desert regions and less in the central Midwest United States and Scandinavia. It is also called the "altithermal period" and could serve as a past climate analogue for predicting the regional pattern of climate change should the mean Earth-surface temperature increase as a result of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

This is an informative book, useful for people in the field or as an interesting introduction to the study of climate change.