World-wide events are creating an unprecedented growth of
interest in regional and global climates. Extensive media coverage
of droughts, floods, and very cold or exceptionally warm
winters is exposing people from all segments of society to the
significance of climate. The modern age of communications has
permitted many formerly esoteric climatological terms, with
El Niño providing an excellent example, to be widely known
and frequently cited. The realization that climate, and its
potential for change, can have profound influences on both the
quality of life and the nature of the Earth’s environment
provides the basis for global actions. International conferences,
publications, and agreements, many sponsored by the United
Nations, are based upon the necessity of establishing international
climate programs that assist nations in both understanding
and responding to natural and human-induced climate
processes and their implications. Results are widely reported
and have become the basis for some controversies, especially
regarding future climate scenarios.
Given that the public is becoming more aware of the importance
of climate, it is necessary for the professional climatologist
to respond to the public’s needs. Research in both theoretical
and applied climatology is beginning to provide a greater
understanding of the actual and potential impacts of past, present
and future climates, and it remains for the professional to
provide the educated layperson with climatic information that
is accurate, meaningful and readily comprehended. It is hoped
that The Encyclopedia of World Climatology will be of value in
this respect, for its content provides the basis for the understanding
of many aspects of climate while, at the same time,
providing information on recent advances in the field.
The content of this work reflects, in part, that of the
Encyclopedia of Climatology that was published in 1986.
However, there are many essential differences between the current
volume and the earlier work, with the most obvious being
the inclusion of modern developments in the field. Of importance,
too, is the way in which past climates are treated. In this
volume, apart from an overview of changes over geologic time,
past climate articles deal with changes that have occurred in
historic times and their impacts. This time restriction results
from the explosive development of paleoclimatology in recent
decades. So significant is this growth, that a companion volume,
Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient
Environments, is necessary. Such a volume is currently being
composed and edited for the same Encyclopedia of Earth
Sciences Series.
The transfer of paleoclimate articles to another volume permits
the Encyclopedia of World Climatology to include many
more articles dealing with impacts of climate, examined from
both environmental and social points of view. For example,
changes in atmospheric quality are discussed not only as an
atmospheric process but also as a human hazard. Additionally,
a number of biographies of climatologists who have played a
significant role in the development of climatology are provided.
Those included should be considered representative of the
many scholars who contributed to the discipline at various
stages of its development. It is, of course, impossible to include
all those individuals whose research has added to the intellectual
content of climatology.
The 1986 volume contained contributions by outstanding
scholars who are now deceased. The skill with which such
authors as Helmut Landsberg, Elmer Reiter, J. Murray Mitchell
and Derek Schove presented their ideas and concepts was not
something that I wished to lose. As a result, their works have
been suitably and carefully revised and edited while retaining
enough of the original to reflect the writings of the original contribution.
Completing such a task is no easy undertaking, and
the writers who completed those revisions are certainly to be
commended.

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