Choice 评论

How can one resist a volume whose opening chapter begins with ``Wild mustangs gallop across the killpecker dunes of the Red Desert northeast of Rock Springs''? This romantic sentence introduces a very prosaic volume that is a compendium of research compiled by the University of Wyoming's Water Research Center. An introductory chapter examines the various environmental factors that influence Wyoming's diverse climate, and subsequent chapters provide detailed analyses of the major climatic elements. Chapters devoted to temperature, precipitation, wind, and atmospheric pressure are followed by others that treat dimensions such as snowpack, soil temperature, drought, air quality, and evaporation. These textual treatments are accompanied by photographs, maps, tables of data, graphs, and diagrams. There are several appendixes, the longest (144 pages) presenting summary statements of each of Wyoming's climatological stations. A specialized item of interest to libraries in Wyoming, to whom it will be a valuable reference work, and to specialized meteorologists, who may be interested in it as a model of regional climatological description.-B. Osborne, Queen's University