The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change

A clearly written primer on the physics and chemistry of the earth's atmosphere and how they can produce such socially relevant phenomena as ozone depletion, acid rain, and global climate change. Somerville, a professor of meteorology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has performed a useful service by explaining these complex events in simple prose, with scholarly modesty about what is actually known, and interesting side remarks on the complex character of modern science and the diverse motivations of its practitioners.