Preface

Summary

This short book is a companion volume and a natural extension to my textbook entitled Basic Physical Chemistry for the Atmospheric Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 1995; second edition published in 2000). Together these two books provide material for a first (undergraduate or graduate) course in atmospheric chemistry; they should also be suitable for self-study.

In Basic Physical Chemistry for the Atmospheric Sciences the groundwork was laid for courses in atmospheric chemistry and other areas of environmental chemistry. The present book provides a short introduction to the subject of atmospheric chemistry itself. Twenty years ago this subject was a minor branch of the atmospheric sciences, pursued by relatively few scientists. Today, atmospheric chemistry is one of the most active and important disciplines within meteorology, and one with which every geoscientist and environmental scientist should have some familiarity.

The emphasis of this book is on the basic principles of atmospheric chemistry, with applications to such important environmental problems as air pollution, acid rain, the ozone hole, and global change. In keeping with the pedagogical approach of its companion volume, model solutions are provided to a number of exercises within the text. In an appendix, readers are invited to test their skills on further exercises. Answers to all of the exercises and worked solutions to the more difficult ones, are provided.

Thanks are due to Halstead Harrison for allowing me to use some of his exercises, and to Richard Gammon, Dean Hegg, Daniel Jaffe, Robert Kotchenruther, Conway Leovy, Donald Stedman, and Stephen Warren for reviewing various portions of this book. I thank also the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for their support of my own research on atmospheric chemistry.