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STORMS. Edited by Roger Pielke Jr. and Roger Pielke Sr., Routledge Hazards and Disasters Series, 2000. ISBN 0-415-17239-X (hardback, 2-volume set). xxviii+563 pages (Vol. I), xvii+345 pages (Vol. II). Price £225. STORMS is the second of the seven titles planned under the Routledge Hazards and Disasters Series. This two-volume work, marking the conclusion of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), summarizes the current state of knowledge in combating storm-related losses, and charts the way forward in the post-IDNDR years. Some idea of this publication's scope may be gained by saying that its 908 pages are divided into five parts with a total of 47 chapters; there are some 500 figures, 81 plates and 64 tables. Seventy-four leading authorities have contributed their knowledge and experience. A comprehensive review of such a wide-ranging collection of information would call for far greater space than is available here. A selective description of its contents is all that can be given.

Part I, Storm Science and Societal Vulnerability, introduces the hazards linked to storms from both scientific and social standpoints, and some of the measures to prevent them from becoming disasters. The understanding of vulnerability and its complexities is central to much of this Routledge series and deserves the emphasis it receives here. That the number of extreme weather events has risen about 50 percent in each decade between 1900 and 1990, and is accelerating, forcibly underscores its importance. Estimates of insured property losses from a severe tropical cyclone strike on a major city could now reach US$50 billion.

The sophistication of the forecasting and warning system in the United States (Ch. 6), and the progress it has brought, is most impressive but no doubt far beyond the financial and scientific resources of large areas of the world. Part I ends with chapters on social aspects of warning messages, observing systems, and short-term climate variations.

Part II, devoted to tropical cyclones, brings together contributions from a galaxy of stars of the meteorological world whose work on these storms is seminal. William Gray, the doyen of tropical cyclone researchers, stresses in an overview the need for better integrated data sets if an improved synthesis of the internal physics and environmental interactions of cyclones is to be reached. Seasonal predictions based on empirical methods, many will be surprised to learn, have proved superior to those obtained from numerical models. Charles Neumann discusses the WMO Tropical Cyclone Programme, drawing attention to the many variations in terminology and operational practice in different cyclone basins that still bedevil attempts to make direct comparisons. He proposes a new global tropical cyclone climatology. Robert Southern, whose work in Bangladesh must have saved many thousands of lives, provides a lucid chapter on warning and response strategies containing much sound advice if the toll of human life and economic losses are to be further diminished. Gary Foley reviews past tropical cyclone impacts in Australia, looking also at societal problems the future may bring. The northern Indian Ocean, scene of several of the world's greatest cyclone disasters, is examined by S. Raghavan and A.K. Sen Sarma. Particular difficulties are recounted together with prospects for future improvements. The October 1999 Orissa cyclone was a tragic reminder of the timeliness of these authors' advice.

Lianshou Chen highlights the seriousness of tropical cyclone impact in China. With the highest landfall frequency in the world, each typhoon-strength storm causes about US$60 million of damage on average. Professor Chen presents a complete account of the problems involved and China's efforts to solve them. Pielke Jr. rounds off this part with a surprise (to this reviewer) critique of the lack in the U.S. of systematic data needed for valid assessments of hurricane vulnerability. He proposes a new approach to the framing of hurricane-related policies.

But tropical cyclones are not the only storms impacting mankind. Part III ranges widely over extratropical cyclones, from their dynamics and climatology to coastal hazards, wind and ice storms, and flooding. Two chapters deal with winter storms in Canada and Russia, while China, Cuba and the Lower Mekong Basin are other areas covered in this part. These chapters contain a wealth of fascinating, predominantly meteorological, information, and will repay careful study by all concerned with disaster management in these mid-latitude storms.

Parts IV and V (Vol. II) cover mesoscale convective systems and Other Storms. The former embraces storms on the horizontal scale of thunderstorms: tornadoes, hailstorms, squall lines, flash floods and lightning; all have a severe impact upon vulnerable populations. William R. Cotton provides a detailed description of the meteorological features of these systems, the problems of forecasting their effects then being discussed by Ziegler who also reports on the limitations of current modeling techniques. The social context of thunderstorms is described in Chapter 33, which contains much valuable information on risk perception and human response, as well as on trends in damage costs, deaths and injuries. Separate chapters deal with lightning, flash floods, tornadoes and hailstorms. South Africa, the United States, Brazil and Mexico are also featured in this part, which ends with a chapter on windshear and microbursts as aviation hazards. One is astonished to learn that in 1671 an Oxford fellow recognized this phenomenon. Research has now substantially reduced the occurrence of aviation accidents from this cause.

Other Storms contains four chapters beginning with polar lows, small-scale cyclonic disturbances which develop in cold air masses over the sea. Their spiral structure has led to them being described as "small tropical cyclones"; their principal impact is on shipping and offshore activities such as oil drilling. Recent research on the South Asian monsoon is comprehensively reviewed in the second of these chapters. The need for space weather prediction appeared to be marginal in a work on storms but solar-terrestrial disturbances are already costed at an annual average of US$100 million through their effect on communications, power and navigation systems, and even in modifying satellite orbits. This chapter (46) reveals that the U.S. Air Force and Navy alone are responsible for the surveillance of 6,000 objects in space. Surely new problems must arise if space continues to be a repository for so much hardware. Volume II ends with a discussion of dust storms, analyzing their occurrence and frequency in different parts of the world, together with the consequences and hazards they present.

All in all the two volumes of STORMS present an up-to-date collection of information available nowhere else without a vast amount of research through the world of scientific and technical literature. If, perhaps inevitably, it concentrates more on the meteorological aspects of the storms discussed, it nevertheless gives disaster managers a better understanding of the impacts with which they must cope.

The present volumes are printed on paper of high quality, the type is clear, the diagrams and photographs for the most part well presented. The handsome binding is sturdy. This publication calls for wide circulation which one fears is unlikely at its cover price of £225. Many technical libraries will baulk at such cost, eyeing the other six volumes in the series as an expense difficult to justify. This is a great pity and one wonders whether a paperback version, perhaps with separate volumes for each of the five parts, could be produced. If broken down in that way, purchasers could limit their expenditure to those parts of special interest to them. Considering the scope and length of the publication, few printing errors were noticed. The inevitable overlap when 74 authors discuss similar storms, or similar aspects of different storms or hazards, is kept to a minimum. The editors indeed deserve our congratulations. A minor quibble would be the absence of a list of the literally hundreds of acronyms, many of which will be unfamiliar to most readers.

-- Peter Rogers

Peter Rogers spent most of his professional career in the Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) where, from 1967 until 1984, he was principally responsible for the WMO Tropical Cyclone Programme. He is now based in Bangkok and advises ADPC on meteorology related issues from time to time.