Droughts

by Allaby, Michael; Garratt, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780816047932
• ISBN10: 0816047936
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Facts on File

Summary

Discusses the causes and effects of the lack of rainfall, discusses the role of droughts in history, and surveys ways of handling water shortages.

Author Biography

Michael Allaby is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than 40 books, mainly on science, natural history, and environmental topics

Table of Contents

Preface: What is a drought?	p. vii
Introduction	p. xi
When the Rains Fail	p. 1
Where the deserts are	p. 1
Specific heat capacity and blackbodies	p. 8
Subtropical deserts	p. 9
Temperature inversions	p. 12
Adiabatic cooling and warming	p. 13
Humidity	p. 14
West Coast deserts	p. 18
Land and sea breezes	p. 23
Polar deserts	p. 24
Air movements and the transport of heat	p. 31
Potential temperature	p. 37
Precipitation, evaporation, sublimation, deposition, and ablation	p. 38
George Hadley and Hadley cells	p. 39
General circulation of the atmosphere	p. 40
Latent heat and dew point	p. 44
Evaporation, condensation, and the formation of clouds	p. 46
Lapse rates and stability	p. 49
Ocean currents and sea-surface temperature	p. 51
The Coriolis effect	p. 53
Climate cycles and oscillations	p. 58
Intertropical convergence and the equatorial trough	p. 60
El Nino and La Nina	p. 64
Jet streams and storm tracks	p. 70
Blocking highs	p. 75
Weather fronts	p. 78
Vorticity and angular momentum	p. 81
Water and Life	p. 84
Desert life	p. 84
The "ship of the desert"	p. 88
Life near the poles	p. 90
Hibernation	p. 95
Peoples of the desert	p. 96
Why plants need water	p. 102
C3, C4, and CAM plants	p. 105
Osmosis	p. 106
Water in the Ground	p. 108
Water below ground	p. 108
Wells and springs	p. 113
What Droughts Can Do	p. 119
How droughts are classified	p. 119
Droughts of the past	p. 124
Drought and soil erosion	p. 131
Soil erodibility	p. 135
The Dust Bowl	p. 136
The Sahel	p. 141
Monsoons	p. 147
Coping with Drought	p. 154
Dry-weather farming	p. 154
Irrigation	p. 158
Water for people	p. 166
Water recycling and purification	p. 171
Desalination	p. 176
Water storage	p. 182
Saving water	p. 187
Will climate change bring more droughts?	p. 189
The solar spectrum	p. 192
Bibliography and Further Reading	p. 197
Appendixes
SI units and conversions	p. 203
Prefixes used with SI units	p. 204
Index	p. 205
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Praise for the previous edition:
...a handy resource and a solid curricular supplement.—Booklist
...it will make research a breeze and may inspire further inquiries...—Kirkus Reviews
In recent years, climate research has intensified, and concern over the possibility that humans may be altering the global climate has stimulated funding for increased study of global warming and its consequences. With the 2002 drought in the United States having been especially severe, and droughts in other parts of the world causing conflicts over scarce resources, it becomes increasingly important for young people to have a quality resource that answers their questions about this phenomenon.
Droughts, Revised Edition is a fully revised and updated version of the successful previous edition. Several new chapters include coverage of topics such as the geography of deserts; climate cycles and oscillations, describing the ways climates change for entirely natural reasons—reasons that have nothing to do with our emissions of greenhouse gases; and life in deserts. Sidebars display detailed explanations or interesting pieces of information without interrupting the main flow of the text. They explain concepts from atmospheric science, such as adiabatic cooling and warming, potential temperature, lapse rates, and the intertropical convergence and equatorial trough, as well as biological processes. This volume is illustrated with tables, charts, maps, and figures; and it contains an index; a bibliography; and appendixes.