(Organization as given in EOS guidelines for authors of book reviews) 1) Atmospheric Dynamics 2) John Green 3) Cambridge University Press 4) New York, NY 5) 213 pp. 6) ISBN 0 521 24975 9 7) 1999 8) $69.95 9) Review: Atmospheric dynamics enjoys a large and steadily increasing number of textbooks covering the subject for its students. John Green's _Atmospheric Dynamics_ is distinctly different from other books on the topic in several respects. Most importantly, the reader is expected to have prior knowledge of atmospheric dynamics; significant knowledge in some aspects. There are few figures, and even fewer references to outside sources. Thus, this book may serve as supplemental reading in a graduate course on dynamics, but may be less suitable as the primary text. The organization and style of the book are unconventional in that the author shuns formal derivations and well established results to approach topics from an empirical, intuitive, perspective. Although this treatment is useful in some instances, in others the development is not logically sequenced and is difficult to follow. Moreover, while the author celebrates empirical reasoning that produces relationships more accurate than formal approaches, the reverse scenario is not considered. A worthwhile aspect of the book is an emphasis on using physically based reasoning to guide the mathematical analysis in sorting out the important processes. Another unconventional stylistic attribute has the author frequently sharing emotional responses, by telling the reader that certain results confuse or astonish him. A wide variety of topics are covered, with an overall progression in the subject matter from fast, small-scale, motions to slower, large-scale, motions. The first three chapters deal with introductory material, notation, and a heuristic derivation of the governing equations. A worthwhile discussion on spectral representations of spatially isolated phenomena is included, but fails to make the simple link between increasing spatial localization and spectral broadening. In simplifying the governing equations in Chapter 4, the author employs a useful device involving "tracer" variables of unit value, which allows one to assess the impact of approximations in subsequent equations. A discussion of acoustic and gravity waves follows, including an examination of how boundary conditions affect the solutions. Brief overviews of Kelvin-Helmholtz and gravitational instability are given in Chapters 6 and 7, including some thoughts on dissipation and nonlinearity. Chapter 8, on mesoscale motions, contains material on boundary layers and a dam-break problem, whereas there is essentially no mention of semigeostrophy or fundamental mesoscale phenomena such as frontogenesis and symmetric instability. Moving to the synoptic scale, the next three chapters include discussions of baroclinic instability and energy dispersion. A standard discussion of the parcel perspective on baroclinic instability is given, followed by a review of normal modes in Eady's model and an unnecessarily opaque discussion of some aspects of nonmodal development. The last three chapters of the book address numerical models and aspects of the general circulation. Portions of this material have a philosophical tone, and the author closes with a plea to maintain a link between hypothesis testing and observations without over-relying on numerical models. Finally, a survey of the index reveals no entries for density, energy, geostrophy, or hydrostatic balance; however, there are entries for astonishing, bicycle, homily, incorrect, and penguin. 10) Reviewer: Gregory J. Hakim Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Washington Seattle, Washington