referencebooks

Encyclopedia of Water

By David E. Newton

Published by Greenwood, 2003

This is a 7" by 10" hardbound book running to 401 pages including the index, plus a preface, an introduction, and a classified guide to the articles.

See my entry for October 30, 2005, for the same author's Encyclopedia of Air, also published by Greenwood in 2003, along with another one called Encyclopedia of Fire.

Like Encyclopedia of Air, this encyclopedia looks at its subject in a vastly multi-disciplinary way, with articles covering topics in chemistry, biology, meteorology and other earth sciences, literature, mythology and religion, transportation, technology, visual arts, and history, as well as also providing many biographical entries on people whose work related to water and organizations that have to do with water. Here is a list of the first fifteen entries in the "H" sequence, "See Also" references included:

• Haliae See Nymphs
  
• Hard Water
  
• Heavy Water
  
• Holy Water
  
• Holy Waters See Sacred Waters
  
• Hookah
  
• Hovercraft See Boats and Ships
  
• "Hubbly-Bubbly" See Hookah
  
• Human Water Needs See Biological Functions of Water; Desalination
  
• Humidity
  
• Hydrate
  
• Hydraulic Device
  
• Hydraulic Press See Bramah, Joseph
  
• Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, and Hydrodynamics
  
• Hydroelectric Power
  

The entries are written in relatively simple prose given the scientific subject matter of many of them. Since it's such a multi-disciplinary encyclopedia it wouldn't be appropriate to assume too much significant background knowledge, and the author doesn't. However, he doesn't shy away from providing mathematical formulae where relevant. So, there is a fairly decent amount of information included given the breadth of scope.

Reference books like this that take a feature of the world like water and air and look at it from such a wide range of disciplines are interesting, fun, and rather odd from a practical standpoint. Usually when someone is studying something like water it is from the perspective of a particular discipline, and they will find deeper information in a resource that is created specifically for that discipline. This stems from the fact that the work that people do is usually of a certain kind. When I try to think of who would find a book like this most useful, I keep coming back to the notion of a literary writer or a visual or conceptual artist who needs to pull together ideas about water for thematic, exploratory reasons. It is difficult to say who else might find a good use for this book, but you never know. It does have a lot of good information relating to water in it.

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.

Encyclopedia of Air

By David E. Newton.

Published by Greenwood Press, 2003.

This is a 7" by 10" hardbound book running to 252 pages including the index, plus a brief introduction and a classified list of entries.

This is an interesting reference book for its mix of scientific and cultural entries on the subject of air. There are entries having to do with chemistry, physics, and meteorology all in the same sequence as the entries having to do with mythology, military topics, government and civic organizations, biography, sports, transportation, law, and other aspects of culture.

The full list of entries from the "B" and "C" sequences is as follows:

• Baghouse
  
• Balloons
  
• Barometer
  
• Barotrauma
  
• Beaufort, Sir Francis
  
• Bernoulli's Principle
  
• Boyle, Robert
  
• Brush, Charles F.
  
• Buoyancy
  
• Carbon Dioxide
  
• Center for Clean Air Policy
  
• Civil Air Patrol
  
• Clean Air Acts
  
• Clean Air Trust
  
• Clean the Air
  
• Cariolis, Gaspard Gustave
  
• Cariolis Effect
  
• Ctesibius (Second Century B.C.)
  
• Cyclones and Anticyclones
  

Entries are very readable and informative, often getting into the history of what's being discussed. The longest entries are just a few pages in length.

It's not a very long book, and the type is on the large side, so there really isn't a whole lot here.

On the whole it is a rather odd book, seemingly a personal project from a guy whose favorite subject is air. It's not easy to see what its main uses would be, other than for associative browsing.

Encycopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones

By David Longshore.

Published by Facts on File, 1998. Copyright held by the author.

This is a hardbound book measuring 9" by 11" and running to 372 pages including the index.

The introduction says, "For the purpose of this encyclopedia, the study of tropical cyclones has been divided into three basic rubrics: tropical cyclones in science; tropical cyclones in history; and tropical cyclones in culture." The work contains entries on scientific aspects of cyclones, specific cyclones in history, specific places historically vulnerable to cyclones satellites, people, and other entries.

The list of entries in the "N" sequence is as follows:

• N
  
• Nagasaki Typhoon
  
• Nagoya Typhoon
  
• Nancy, Typhoon
  
• National Hurricane Center (NHC)
  
• navigable semicircle
  
• Neptune p2v-3w
  
• New England
  
• New London, Hurricane
  
• New York
  
• Nimbus
  
• Nina, Typhoon
  
• Norfolk-Long Island Hurricane
  
• Norma, Hurricane
  
• North Atlantic Ocean
  
• North Carolina
  
• North Pacific Ocean
  
• Norton, Grady
  

The entry on New York is four pages long, referring to 40 documented hurricanes that have affected the state, including 15 major ones, which it describes.

Among the facts it mentions in passing is that the "Hurricane" is the "national" drink of New Orleans.

This reference book is a rich trove of information about tropical cyclones.