Today's greater public awareness of how climate affects our quality of life and environment has created an increasing demand for climatological information. Now this information is available in one convenient, accessible source, The Encyclopedia of Climatology. This comprehensive volume covers all the main subfields of climatology, supplies data on climates in major continental areas and explains what is known about the causes of climatic processes and changes. Contents include articles on bioclimatology, El Niño, climatic models, world regional climates, civilization and climate, climatic variations and the greenhouse effect.

Waves critically affect man in coastal regions, including the open coasts and adjacent continental shelves. Preventing beach erosion, designing and building structures, designing and operating ships, providing marine forecasts, and coastal planning are but a few examples of projects for which extensive information about wave conditions is critical. Scientific studies, especially those in volving coastal processes and the development of better wave prediction models, also require wave condition information. How ever, wave conditions along and off the coasts of the United States have not been adequately determined. The main categories of available wave data are visual estimates of wave conditions made from ships at sea, scientific measurements of waves made for short time periods at specific locations, and a small number of long-term measurements made from piers or offshore platforms. With these considerations in mind, the National Ocean Survey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sponsored the Ocean Wave Climate Symposium at Herndon, Virginia, July 12-14, 1977. This volume contains papers presented at this symposium. A goal of the symposium was to establish the foundations for a com prehensive and far-sighted wave measurement and analysis program to fully describe the coastal wave climate of the United States. Emphasis was placed on ocean engineering and scientific uses of wave data, existing wave monitoring programs, and modern measure ment techniques which may provide currently needed data.

Waves critically affect man in coastal regions, including the open coasts and adjacent continental shelves. Preventing beach erosion, designing and building structures, designing and operating ships, providing marine forecasts, and coastal planning are but a few examples of projects for which extensive information about wave conditions is critical. Scientific studies, especially those in volving coastal processes and the development of better wave prediction models, also require wave condition information. How ever, wave conditions along and off the coasts of the United States have not been adequately determined. The main categories of available wave data are visual estimates of wave conditions made from ships at sea, scientific measurements of waves made for short time periods at specific locations, and a small number of long-term measurements made from piers or offshore platforms. With these considerations in mind, the National Ocean Survey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sponsored the Ocean Wave Climate Symposium at Herndon, Virginia, July 12-14, 1977. This volume contains papers presented at this symposium. A goal of the symposium was to establish the foundations for a com prehensive and far-sighted wave measurement and analysis program to fully describe the coastal wave climate of the United States. Emphasis was placed on ocean engineering and scientific uses of wave data, existing wave monitoring programs, and modern measure ment techniques which may provide currently needed data.

Sandy beaches represent some of the most dynamic environments on Earth and examining their morphodynamic behaviour over different temporal and spatial scales is challenging, relying on multidisciplinary approaches and techniques. Sandy Beach Morphodynamics brings together the latest research on beach systems and their morphodynamics and the ways in which they are studied in 29 chapters that review the full spectrum of beach morphodynamics. The chapters are written by leading experts in the field and provide introductory level understanding of physical processes and resulting landforms, along with more advanced discussions.

Early in 1979, a group of wave researchers proposed a wave model inter comparison study to clarify the interrelations existing among the various wave models which have been developed in past years for real-time wave forecasting, wave statistics compilations, or hindcast case studies. The idea was immediately welcomed by the wave modeling community, and, finally, nine wave modeling groups from the United States, Japan, and Europe participated in the exercise. The principal results of this work are presented here jointly by the Sea Wave Modeling Project (swAMP) Group (the members of which are listed in Appendix A). Descriptions of the models used in the study are given in Part II of this volume. A more complete documentation of the entire set of numerical experiments is given in Part 2 of the Sea Wave Modeling Project (SWAMP group, 1982). The main purpose of the intercomparison study was to test our present understanding of the physics of . wind-generated surface waves from the viewpoint of wave modeling. Specifically, we wished to clarify the basic interdependence between understanding the physics of surface waves, repre senting the physics numerically, and predicting quantitatively the detailed space-time evolution of a two-dimensional surface wave spectrum for a given wind field. It was not our intent to carry out a model competition. In this sense there were no winners or losers: all models could claim specific strong points, and all displayed weaknesses in some areas.

This book was published in 2004. The Interaction of Ocean Waves and Wind describes in detail the two-way interaction between wind and ocean waves and shows how ocean waves affect weather forecasting on timescales of 5 to 90 days. Winds generate ocean waves, but at the same time airflow is modified due to the loss of energy and momentum to the waves; thus, momentum loss from the atmosphere to the ocean depends on the state of the waves. This volume discusses ocean wave evolution according to the energy balance equation. An extensive overview of nonlinear transfer is given, and as a by-product the role of four-wave interactions in the generation of extreme events, such as freak waves, is discussed. Effects on ocean circulation are described. Coupled ocean-wave, atmosphere modelling gives improved weather and wave forecasts. This volume will interest ocean wave modellers, physicists and applied mathematicians, and engineers interested in shipping and coastal protection.