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Air and Water Trade Winds, Hurricanes, Gulf Stream, Tsunamis and Other Striking Phenomena

:	René Moreau
:	Air and Water Trade Winds, Hurricanes, Gulf Stream, Tsunamis and Other Striking Phenomena
:	Springer-Verlag
:	9783319652153
:	1
:	CHF 42.80
:

:	Mechanik, Akustik
:	English

:	264
:	Wasserzeichen/DRM
:	PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
:	PDF

Air and water are so familiar that we all think we know them. Yet how difficult it remains to predict their behavior, with so many questions butting against the limits of our knowledge. How are cyclones, tornadoes, thunderstorms, tsunamis or floods generated - sometimes causing devastation and death? What will the weather be tomorrow, next week, next summer? This book brings some answers to these questions with a strategy of describing before explaining. Starting by considering air and water in equilibrium (i.e., at rest), it progresses to discuss dynamic phenomena first focusing on large scale structures, such as El Niño or trade winds, then on ever smaller structures, such as low-pressure zones in the atmosphere, clouds, rain, as well as tides

and waves. It finishes by describing man-made constructions (dams, ports, power plants, etc.) that serve to domesticate our water resources and put them to work for us.

Including over one hundred illustrations and very few equations, most of the text is accessible to readers with no more than high-school science and who are at ease with quantities such as the temperature of a fluid or the pressure within such a medium. Beyond the primary audience of engineers, teachers, and students, the book is thus also addressed to walkers, hikers, navigators, and all nature lovers.

René Moreau is emeritus professor at Grenoble Institute of Technology, a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and a member of the French Academy of Technology. He is a recognized specialist in the field of fluid mechanics, notably in magnetohydrodynamics, and the author of several books and more than 150 other publications on these subjects. This book was born of his desire to share his love of nature and of his wonderment of the phenomena it displays. As he says in the prologue: In essence, I hope to give the reader feeling that I am telling a beautiful story and of transmitting a sense of my awe and wonder of it all.
From 1990 until 2012 he was the Series Editor of the Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications Bookseries, http://www.springer.com/serie /5980

	Reader's guide	6
	Acknowledgments	7
	Table of contents	8
	Prologue	11
	1 The atmosphere at rest	14
	1. Structure of the atmosphere	15
	2. Composition of the atmosphere	20
	3. Propagation of waves in the atmosphere	27
	3.1. Sound	27
	3.2. Light	28
	4. Heat exchange through the atmosphere	33
	Conclusion	38
	2 The atmosphere in movement	40
	1. Large-scale circulation within the atmosphere	41
	1.1. The trade winds, the HADLEY cell, and the subtropical jet stream	41
	1.2. Polar cells, FERREL cell, and the polar jet stream	47
	2. Low-pressure zones and cyclones	49
	2.1. Formation and direction of rotation of atmospheric low-pressure zones	49
	2.2. Quasi-two-dimensional structure of low-pressure zones	57
	2.3. Trajectory and energy of depressions	62
	3. Periodic phenomena in the atmosphere	66
	3.1. Monsoons	66
	3.2. The WALKER cell	68
	3.3. Thermal winds, katabatic winds, and anabatic winds	68
	3.4. Dappled skies and lee waves	72
	Conclusion	74
	3 The vagaries of the atmosphere	75
	1. Birth and evolution of thunderstorms and tornados	76
	1.1. Dynamics of thunderstorm formation	76
	1.2. Tornado formation	79
	2. Sonic and luminal signatures of thunderstorms	85
	2.1. Lightning	85
	2.2. Thunder	90
	2.3. The lights of the upper atmosphere	91
	2.4. Rainbows	93
	3. The various precipitations	96
	4. How are weather forecasts produced?	100
	Conclusion	103
	4 Heavier than air, how can they fly?	104
	1. Lift and drag	105
	1.1. Lift explained by pressure forces	105
	1.2. Formation of vortices around a wing in flight	108
	2. Why are airplanes so noisy?	114
	3. Shock wave and sound barrier	117
	Conclusion	120
	5 The tranquil sea	121
	1. The sea at rest	122
	1.1. A first panoramic glimpse	122
	1.2. Pressure, temperature, and salinity of seawater	125
	1.3. The sea is neither flat nor round	129
	2. Sound and light in seawater	132
	3. The remarkable stability of ships	134
	4. Global circulation in the oceans	137
	Conclusion	142
	6 The sea that we see dancing	143
	1. The tides	144
	2. The El Niño phenomenon	149
	3. Swells and waves	152
	3.1. How and why do waves propagate?	152
	3.2. The surprising variety of waves	156
	3.3. Ripples and convective instabilities under ice floe	162
	Conclusion	164
	7 Rivers and streams	166
	1. The main properties of the great rivers	167
	1.1. Length, depth, and speed distribution	167
	1.2. Uniform regime	169
	1.3. Nonuniform regimes	171
	2. Curves and meanders	177
	3. Waterfalls and cascades	180
	Conclusion	181
	8 Lakes, dams, and major works	183
	1. From marshes to hydroelectric reservoirs	184
	2. Large dams: stability and conforming to site	189
	3. Management of large rivers	194
	4. General structure of a hydroelectric facility	197
	4.1. High-hydraulic head in mountainous regions	197
	4.2. Medium hydraulic head	200
	4.3. Facilities with small hydraulic heads	201
	4.4. Other types of facilities	203
	5. Large port facilities	203
	Conclusion	206
	Epilogue	208
	1. What worries, and on what are they based?	209
	1.1. Air pollution	210
	1.2. Marine pollution	212
	1.3. Freshwater resources	213
	2. To conclude our journey	214
	Appendix Instabilities and turbulence	216
	1. The sudden appearance of movement	217
	1.1. RAYLEIGH-BÉNARD instability	217
	1.2. RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR instability	221
	2. Sheared interfaces: the KELVIN-HELMHOLTZ instability	223
	3. Other common vortex structures	226
	4. Transition toward turbulence	229
	4.1. Appearance of turbulence in unconfined flows	229
	4.2. Transition toward turbulence in duct flows	231
	4.3. Other ways to generate turbulence	232
	5. Fully developed turbulence	233
	5.1. Turbulence in the most common flows	233
	5.2. Large-scale atmospheric turbulence	234
	5.3. Inverse energy cascade in two-dimensional turbulence	237
	Conclusion	239
	Glossary	241
	Index	258