The Mathematics of Meteorology

Philip Duncan Thompson

A chapter in Mathematics Today Twelve Informal Essays, 1978, pp 127-152 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In its modern sense, meteorology is the science that deals with the structure and behavior of the atmosphere or, more precisely, that part of the gaseous envelope that extends upward from the earth’s surface to an altitude of about 100 kilometers. The latter limit is rather arbitrary, but corresponds roughly to the altitude below which electromagnetic forces and photochemical reactions are presumed to be relatively unimportant, and whose effects are therefore assumed to have little influence in the course of events in the underlying atmosphere. The name was evidently taken froth the first “scientific” treatise on weather, the Meteorologica, written by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. Although Aristotle’s early work was concerned with a wider variety of subjects (including the qualitative description of various astronomical, oceanographic, and geologic phenomena), it appears; likely that “meteorology” is derived from the Greek word “meteoros,” meaning “something that falls from the sky”—rain, snow, hail, or hard-rock meteors.

Keywords: Gravity Wave; Rossby Wave; Wave Motion; Numerical Weather Prediction; Weather Prediction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1978
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4613-9435-8_6

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