INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY

Int. J. Climatol. 18: 933–934 (1998)

BOOK REVIEWSLONG-TERM CLIMATIC VARIATIONS: DATA ANDMODELLING. NATO ASI SERIES I: GLOBAL ENVI-RONMENTAL CHANGE, VOL. 22, J.-C. Duplessy andM.-T. Spyridakis, Springer-Verlag (Berlin), 1994. No ofpages: 567. Price: DM 338.00. ISBN 3-540-58112-X.

This book contains the proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on ‘Long-term climatic variations—data andmodelling, held at Siena, Italy, September 1992. The time-scale of interest is that of the last glacial–interglacial cycle,i.e. the last 120000 years. The book reflects the lecture con-tent of the course and is divided into three parts: Part 1 ison ‘The climatic system and its modelling’, Part 2 on ‘Geo-logical evidence’ and Part 3 on ‘Understanding climaticchanges’.

Part I contains six chapters which between them give agood introduction to the numerous numerical models neededfor the study of paleoclimates. Thus chapters range acrossglobal atmospheric modelling; modelling the ocean circula-tion; calculating precession, eccentricity, obliquity and inso-lation for paleoclimates, and lastly biosphere modelling forclimate studies. The last chapter on biosphere modellingcontains an interesting but simple tree-ring model (a toytree-ring model).

Part 2 reviews the evidence for climate change over thelast glacial cycle, most of which is of a geological orgeophysical nature. Twelve chapters cover topics rangingfrom extracting the climate record contained in glacial ice tostatistical techniques of data analysis. Part 3 looks at themuch more difficult topic of understanding climatic changes.Here eight chapters review the results of both theoreticalstudies and the application of global climate models to theproblem of long-term climatic change.

The book provides a good introduction for workers newto the field of long-term climatic change to available numer-ical models and techniques of data analysis.

J.G. LOCKWOOD

Uni6ersity of Leeds

REGIONAL CLIMATES OF THE BRITISH ISLES, Den-nis Wheeler and Julian Mayes (eds), Routledge (London),1997. No. of pages: xxi+343. Price: £65.00. ISBN 0-415-13930-9 (hardback). £17.99 ISBN 0-415-13931-7 (paperback).

Regional Climates of the British Isles is described as ‘present-ing a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the diverseclimate of the British Isles’ and it attempts to do this bydividing the British Isles into ten regions, which ‘. . .will bequickly recognised by the general public. . .’. These regions

are not based on climatological indices but rather on group-ings of counties in England, by taking the Highland Line asthe division between the two Scottish regions and by consid-ering Wales and Ireland as single entities. A chapter isdevoted to each region and, in each case, this has beenwritten by local experts.

After a general introductory chapter this book is dividedinto three parts. Part one, ‘The Anatomy of Regional Cli-mates in the British Isles’, consists of a single chapter whichprovides the meteorological background necessary to under-stand the regional variations in climate. As well as describ-ing the global atmospheric circulation and the role of theoceans in climate, those mechanisms which affect climate ona local scale, e.g. anabatic and katabatic winds and seabreezes, are also discussed. A glossary is available at the endof the book for explanation of some of the meteorologicalterms used in this chapter. Once the global scene has beenset, the atmospheric circulation around the British Isles isconsidered in more detail by using Lamb’s airflow classifica-tion. The major airflow types and their characteristicweather are described and months which have been domi-nated by a particular type are discussed in more detail.

In Part two, ‘The Character of the Regional Climatesacross the British Isles’, each region is considered in turn—namely, South-west England and the Channel Islands,South-east England, Eastern England, The Midlands, Wales,North-east England and Yorkshire, North-west England andthe Isle of Man, Central and Southern Scotland, Highlandand Island Scotland and, finally, Ireland. The layout of eachchapter is the same—after an initial introduction the indi-vidual climate variables are considered, i.e. temperature, pre-cipitation, wind, sunshine and visibility and fog, before afinal concluding section. The mechanisms leading to theobserved regional patterns of climate are discussed anddetails of any notable extreme events and peculiarities ofclimate for the region in question are also included. Eachchapter is reasonably well illustrated with tables, graphsand pictures, including synoptic charts and the occasionalphotograph. Boxes are used to give more detail about par-ticular points mentioned in the general text, but which,if included in the text itself, would break the continuity ofthe ideas being discussed. I noticed a number of things—Ihesitate to call them faults—common to most chapters.For example, each chapter contains a map of the regionindicating, supposedly, the location of all the weather sta-tions and places mentioned in the text. For some of thechapters these maps are not complete and I flipped backto them several times only to find the places I was lookingfor weren’t listed. These tended to be in the regions withwhich I am not familiar, so it was particularly frustrating.All the tables showing mean monthly values for particularvariables could have been simply improved by highlightingthe months exhibiting the highest and lowest values. Each

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