What are the best textbooks on climate science?

November 9, 2014 3:17 PM

I'm looking for climate science textbooks that take a mathematical approach: that go in-depth with the maths of modelling etc. I'd appreciate if they also had a focus on the science of anthropogenic climate change / global warming. Can you recommend any?

Thanks, MeFites!

posted by Quilford to Science & Nature (3 answers total)

Here's a recent one to get you started. Any modern climate science textbook will cover anthropogenic climate change, but this one has more modeling focus than others.

In general, to really understand the currently published models, you need to read the journal articles and follow the links to the supplementary material for more description of the models. This book should give you some of the background necessary to understand.

Depending on what background you already have in geoscience, something like this intro to earth systems science might also be helpful.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:02 PM on November 9, 2014

Not atmospheric science per se, but I quite like this one for its discussion of land surface modeling. It covers the terrestrial response to climate change, how it is modeled, and how these models are coupled with general circulation models (GCMs).
posted by Cecilia Rose at 6:41 PM on November 9, 2014

Two I like are Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics: Fundamentals and Large-scale Circulation by Vallis, and Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics: An Introductory Text by Marshall and Plumb.
posted by solitary dancer at 7:46 PM on November 9, 2014