Author(s): Dick Whitaker

General

Australia has a unique climate and recent natural disasters and climate change debates have made meteorology and the weather heated topics of debate. This book is a colourful overview of Australia's climate and weather, written in an easily accessible way. It provides plenty of information on the following topics: How the weather affects us personally and in our day-to-day living; An explanation of Australia's climate - rainfall, temperature, drought, flood, El Nino, the Southern Oscillation Index and weather extremes; Climatic change and the effect of human activity on climate including the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion; How and why the atmosphere works - details of wind circulations including the southerly buster and Spillane eddy; Clouds - how they form and the different types; Instruments used to measure weather phenomena - from barometers and thermometers to radar and Automatic Weather Stations; Well-known environmental disasters - Cyclone Tracy, the Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday bushfires, the Brisbane floods of 1974 and the Toowoomba floods of 2011.