Ian Roulstone & John Norbury

Ian Roulstone is professor of mathematics at the University of Surrey. John Norbury is a fellow in applied mathematics at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. They are the coeditors of Large-Scale Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics.

Their new book is Invisible in the Storm: The Role of Mathematics in Understanding Weather.

From their February 2013 Q & A with Jessica Pellien at the Princeton University Press Blog:

I’ll start with the thing everyone is talking about. It seems like extreme weather more prevalent in recent years. With Hurricane Sandy and the recent unprecedented Nor’Easter behind us (ed. note: I’m writing from NJ), it bears asking whether the future holds more extreme weather? Can mathematics help answer this question?

Mathematicians think about weather and climate in an unusual way. Our ever-changing weather can be visualized as a curve meandering through an abstract mathematical space of logically possible weather. Any one point of the curve corresponds to a particular state of the weather. The surprise is that the curve does not wander around randomly–patterns emerge. One part of the pattern may correspond to ‘warm and dry’ and another part to ‘cold and wet’. Predicting changes in the weather for the week ahead involves working out if the curve will drift from one part of the pattern to another. Understanding climate involves working out how the pattern itself will change.

So, is the pattern changing toward more extreme weather or can we not answer this question yet?

If we compare the results from different climate models (from different research institutions and weather bureaus around the world), then they show an increase in global average temperature over the next century. However, this could lead to quite different conditions in different parts of the world. For example, if the Gulf Stream was weakened, Europe could experience...[read on]

Learn more about Invisible in the Storm at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Invisible in the Storm.

--Marshal Zeringue