The alarming consequences of global climate change have highlighted the need to take urgent steps to combat the causes of air pollution. Hence, understanding the Earth's atmosphere is a vital component in Man's emerging quest for developing sustainable modes of behaviour in the 21st century.

Written by a team of expert scientists, the Handbook of Atmospheric Science provides a broad and up-to-date account of our understanding of the natural processes that occur within the atmosphere. It examines how Man’s activities have had a detrimental effect on the climate, and how measures may be implemented in order to modify these activities. The book progresses through chapters covering the principles of atmospheric science and the current problems of air pollution at the urban, regional and global scales, to the tools and applications used to understand air pollution.

The Handbook of Atmospheric Science offers an excellent overview of this multi-disciplinary subject and will prove invaluable to both students and researchers of atmospheric science, air pollution and global change.

Nick Hewitt is Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Lancaster University, UK. His main research interests are in understanding how the biosphere and the atmosphere interact: how emissions of trace gases from the biosphere affect the atmosphere, and how the changing atmospheric environment affects the biosphere.

Andrea Jackson is a senior lecturer of Atmospheric Chemistry within the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Leeds, UK. Her main research interests involve investigating the gas phase chemistry of oxidant species in the atmosphere and more recently the physics and chemistry of polar frost flowers and their resultant sea-salt aerosol in order to understand their impact on the atmospheric chemistry of these regions.