Michael B. McElroy is Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard University, where he also serves as Director of the Center for the Environment. He participated in the early Mariner missions to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn and the Viking mission to Mars. The author of more than 200 papers on atomic physics and planetary atmospheres, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Academy of Astronautics, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

• Preface xv 1. Introduction 1 2. Basic Physical Concepts 5 3. Basic Chemical Concepts 19 4. Properties of Water 31 5. Atmospheric History and Composition 39 6. Energy Budget of the Atmosphere 51 7. Vertical Structure of the Atmosphere 63 8. Horizontal Motion of the Atmosphere 79 9. Dynamics of the Ocean 103 10. Climate through the Ages 113 11. The Carbon Cycle 141 12. Cycles of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur 165 13. Stratospheric Ozone (I): Chapman's Formulation for the Chemistry of an Oxygen-Nitrogen Atmosphere 175 14. Stratospheric Ozone (II): The Role of Radicals 189 15. Stratospheric Ozone (III): Influence of Heterogeneous Chemistry 205 16. Stratospheric Ozone (IV): Influence of Dynamics 221 17. The Chemistry of the Troposphere 231 18. The Chemistry of Precipitation 263 19. Prospects for Climate Change 277 20. Policy Responses to Climate Change 285 Notes 291 References 309 Appendix 317 Index 319

"Michael McElroy's impressive new book is a bargain, for it is really two books in one. Approximately the first half is an accessible general atmospheric science text, and almost all the rest of the book is a comprehensive introduction to atmospheric chemistry... The entire book is authoritative, balanced, up-to-date and exceptionally well-written."--Richard C. J. Somerville, American Journal of Physics "The breadth of this book sets it apart from most other introductory texts on either atmospheric chemistry or climate change, which are typically more restrictive in their focus to one of those two areas... Overall, this is an excellent book... McElroy has done a service to the community in creating a textbook with the potential to help create a future pool of educated people with a thorough yet broad background in the complex web of interactions related to human effects on the atmospheric environment."--Drew T. Shindell, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society