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A. Henderson-Sellers and K. McGuffie, A Climate Modelling Primer, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., New York, Chichester, 1987, 217pp., ISBN O-471-91462-2. The flow of scientific literature in the field of climatology as well as the number of scientific journals are still broadening. But, nevertheless, certain lacunae exist. There is a particularly urgent need for information which could be used by readers interested in climatology as an adjunct to their basic field of interest. Climatology itself is still steadily developing as an area of interdisciplinary research. After we had realized the importance of interactions between meteorology and oceanology, other interdisciplinary directions started emerging, first of all, relevant to atmospheric chemistry and biospheric processes. Since the climatic system is an open one, there is no doubt that in the near future a necessity will arise to consider cosmic factors of climate formation like solar activity, galactic cosmic rays, etc. Social, economic and political consequences of climate change stimulate interactions between natural and social sciences. Thus, a necessity exists to develop climatology as an interdisciplinary science with participation of experts from various fields. But the experts must have some basic knowledge of climatology. This is why the book by A. Henderson-Sellers and K. McGuffie is most welcome. Both co-authors are outstanding scientists who have largely contributed to solutions of the problems discussed in the book. It is equally important to emphasize that the co-authors have the talent of presenting scientific information in an attractive form, which is not an easy task in this case, because climate modelling is a very complicated field of science. I am sure that A Climate ModelZing Primer will certainly be welcome by the readers, and it may stimulate further interest in the development of climatology. The book contains a consideration of basic knowledge of climate-forming processes and, step-by-step, makes the reader prepared to understand more and more complete climate models. It is very important that the main emphasis has been placed on simple models whose principal purpose is to understand basic phenomena and interrelationships. The most positive feature of the book is its practicality - the reader is invited to apply the knowledge discussed. The field of climate modelling is vast and is nowadays in the stage of rather controversial developments. There is probably no better field for scientific arguments. When I was a young Reader at the University of Leningrad, I started delivering a course in climate modelling (that was in 1946). At that time it meant, first of all, a discussion of a Ph.D. Thesis by E. P. Blinova from the USSR Central Institute for Weather Forecasting (Moscow), because she was the first scientist to suggest a 3-D climate model (climate modelling is not a very young field as Boundary-Layer Meteorology 45 (1988) 205-206. @ 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
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mentioned on p. 42). At that time and during the following two decades, there was not too much to argue about, because the development of climate modelling had been very slow before the climatological “explosion” took place some 20 years ago. Now it is easy to say that the book reviewed is not complete in a number of respects. To make but a few comments, T’d like to mention the World Climate Research Programme, not properly discussed in the book, although its component - ISLSCP - has been considered in detail. The problem of energetics of the climatic system should deserve much more attention, especially the Earth’s radiation budget (including the solar constant which has not been adequately defined - see pp. 24, 148, and 189), as well as other components of the energy ba!ance. A consideration of climate feedbacks could be more complete (Par. 1.4). Comparative climatology of planets should be mentioned. It is true (see the Preface) that climate modelling has been progressing successfully, but it is equally correct that climate model predictions are not narrowing rapidly (in contrast to what is mentioned on p. XII), because there are still many uncertainties in the parameterization of various physical processes (first of all, cloud processes and relevant feedbacks). In this respect a comparison with energy/economic models (in the Preface) is not completely persuasive, because the reliability of predictions of climate change due to a CO;? doubling is difficult to assess. References in the book are fairly complete, except that only a few references to Soviet authors have been given, although there is a significant number of monographs on climate problems to be mentioned (some of them have been published in English). In conclusion, I would highly recommend the book to readers (including undergraduate students) who may be interested in an introduction to climate modelling. At the moment it is the only “Climate Modelling Primer” of a very high quality. Znstitute for Lake Research 196 199 Leningrad USSR
K. YA. KONDRATYEV
