Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling (International Geophysics)
Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling (International Geophysics) – Review
I widely read the Reviewer’s comments and appreciate his overall positive review. However, I feel it is necessary to clarify misconceptions holding the fundamental physics material which is presented in the review. The conservation equations that are presented do not mean a quantity such as heat is permanently conserved. As widely discussed in the text, there are sources and sinks of heat in the conservation of equation of heat that is presented. A conservation equation for motion is also just as appropriate as writing a conservation equation for momentum. We can write a conservation equation for any quantity, such as a trace gas (e.g. CO2). Source/sink terms can be accounted for in this scientific framework. The equations in the book are specifically written for the atmosphere, which is usually treated as an perfect gas. This is why the qualification is automatically added in the text that the equations are for the atmosphere (and specifically the earth’s atmosphere). The equations came in the book from the first principle of thermodynamics are only appropriate for the earth’s atmosphere, since the perfect gas equation for air is commonly used. The basic phyics text in Chapters 2 and 3 have been extensively reviewed by various students and others and has been commonly found to be solidly based in basic concepts. The Reviewer did accurately find a typo in that the effective temperature is greater than the real temperature whenever water vapor is present. The inequality on page 8 was reversed but the text and the explanation in that paragraph are correct and should be clear to a reader. Finally, I thank the reviewer for eventually taking the time to complete the review. If there is a third Edition, I certainly will acknowledge that review.