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TWELFTH EDITION
Meteorology Today
An Introduction to Weather,
Climate, and the Environment
C. Donald Ahrens Robert Henson

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Contents in Brief
CHAPTER 1 Earth and Its Atmosphere 3
CHAPTER 2 Energy: Warming and Cooling Earth and the Atmosphere 31
CHAPTER 3 Seasonal and Daily Temperatures 59
CHAPTER 4 Atmospheric Humidity 91
CHAPTER 5 Condensation: Dew, Fog, and Clouds 113
CHAPTER 6 Stability and Cloud Development 143
CHAPTER 7 Precipitation 167
CHAPTER 8 Air Pressure and Winds 197
CHAPTER 9 Wind: Small-Scale and Local Systems 227
CHAPTER 10 Wind: Global Systems 263
CHAPTER 11 Air Masses and Fronts 293
CHAPTER 12 Middle-Latitude Cyclones 321
CHAPTER 13 Weather Forecasting 347
CHAPTER 14 Thunderstorms 383
CHAPTER 15 Tornadoes 415
CHAPTER 16 Hurricanes 439
CHAPTER 17 Global Climate 473
CHAPTER 18 Earth’s Changing Climate 503
CHAPTER 19 Air Pollution 537
CHAPTER 20 Light, Color, and Atmospheric Optics 567
iii
Contents
Preface xv Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere 36

Conduction 36
Convection 37
CHAPTER 1 Focus On A Special Topic 2.2
Rising Air Cools and Sinking Air Warms 38
Earth and Its Atmosphere 3 Radiant Energy 39
The Atmosphere and the Scientific Method 4 Radiation and Temperature 40
Overview of Earth’s Atmosphere 4 Radiation of the Sun and Earth 40
The Early Atmosphere 5 Radiation: Absorption, Emission, and Equilibrium 41
Composition of Today’s Atmosphere 6 Focus On An Environmental Issue 2.3
Wave Energy, Sunburning, and UV Rays 42
FOCUS ON A SPECIAL TOPIC 1.1
A Breath of Fresh Air 7 Selective Absorbers and the Atmospheric Greenhouse
Vertical Structure of the Atmosphere 11 Effect 43
A Brief Look at Air Pressure and Air Density 11 Enhancement of the Greenhouse Effect 46
Layers of the Atmosphere 12 Warming the Air from Below 47
Shortwave Radiation Streaming from the Sun 47
FOCUS ON A SPECIAL TOPIC 1.2
Focus On An Observation 2.4
The Atmospheres of Other Planets 14
Blue Skies, Red Suns, and White Clouds 48
FOCUS ON AN OBSERVATION 1.3 Earth’s Annual Energy Balance 49
The Radiosonde 15 Solar Particles, the Aurora, and Space Weather 51
The Ionosphere 17 Focus On A Special Topic 2.5
Weather and Climate 17 Characteristics of the Sun 52
Meteorology—A Brief History 18
A Satellite’s View of the Weather 19 Solar Storms and Space Weather 54
Weather and Climate in Our Lives 22 Summary 55
Key Terms 55
Focus On A Special Topic 1.4 Questions for Review 55
What Is a Meteorologist? 26 Questions for Thought 56
Summary 27 Problems and Exercises 57
Key Terms 27
Questions for Review 27
Questions for Thought 28
Problems and Exercises 29
Chapter 2
Energy: Warming and Cooling Earth

and the Atmosphere 31
Energy, Temperature, and Heat 32
Temperature Scales 33
Specific Heat 34
© C. Donald Ahrens
Latent Heat—The Hidden Warmth 34

Focus On A Special Topic 2.1
The Fate of a Sunbeam 36
v
Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Seasonal and Daily Temperatures 59 Atmospheric Humidity 91

Why Earth Has Seasons 60 Circulation of Water in the Atmosphere 92
Seasons in the Northern Hemisphere 60 The Many Phases of Water 93
Focus On A Special Topic 3.1 Evaporation, Condensation, and Saturation 93
Is December 21 Really the First Day of Winter? 64 Humidity 95
Absolute Humidity 95
Seasons in the Southern Hemisphere 65
Specific Humidity and Mixing Ratio 95
Local Seasonal Variations 66
Vapor Pressure 96
Focus On An Environmental Issue 3.2 Relative Humidity 97
Solar Heating and the Noonday Sun 67
Daily Warming and Cooling of Air Near the Surface 68 Vapor Pressure and Boiling—The Higher You Go,
Daytime Warming 68 The Longer Cooking Takes 98
Extreme High Temperatures 69
Relative Humidity and Dew Point 99
Nighttime Cooling 70
Comparing Humidities 102
Cold Air at the Surface 71
Relative Humidity in the Home 103
Protecting Crops from the Cold Night Air 72
Relative Humidity and Human Discomfort 104
Record Low Temperatures 73
Daily Temperature Variations 75 Focus On A Special Topic 4.2
Computing Relative Humidity and Dew Point 105
When It Comes to Temperature, What’s Normal? 77 Measuring Humidity 107
Regional Temperature Variations 77 Focus On A Special Topic 4.3
Applications of Air Temperature Data 80 Which Is “Heavier”—Humid Air or Dry Air? 108
Air Temperature and Human Comfort 82 Summary 109
Focus On An Observation 3.4 Key Terms 109
A Thousand Degrees and Freezing to Death 83 Questions for Review 109
Measuring Air Temperature 84
Why Thermometers Should Be Read in the Shade 86 Chapter 5
Summary 87
Key Terms 87 Condensation: Dew, Fog,
Questions for Thought 88 and Clouds 113
Problems and Exercises 89 The Formation of Dew and Frost 114
Condensation Nuclei 115
Haze 115
Fog 116
Radiation Fog 117
Advection Fog 118
Why Are Headlands Usually Foggier Than Beaches? 119
Upslope Fog 119
Fog That Forms by Mixing 120
Evaporation (Mixing) Fog 120
Foggy Weather 122
Clouds 124
Classification of Clouds 124
Cloud Identification 124
© Robert Henson
Some Unusual Clouds 130

Cloud Observations 132
Satellite Observations 133
vi Contents
Focus On An Observation 5.3 Chapter 7
Measuring Cloud Ceilings 134
Focus On An Observation 5.4 Precipitation 167
Goes-16: New Windows on the Atmosphere 135
Precipitation Processes 168
Focus On A Special Topic 5.5 How Do Cloud Droplets Grow Larger? 168
Satellites Do More Than Observe Clouds 138 Collision and Coalescence Process 169
Summary 140 Ice-Crystal (Bergeron) Process 171
Key Terms 140 Focus On A Special Topic 7.1
Questions for Review 140 The Freezing of Tiny Cloud Droplets 172
Questions for Thought 141 Cloud Seeding and Precipitation 174
Problems and Exercises 141 Precipitation in Clouds 175
Focus On An Environmental Issue 7.2
Chapter 6 Does Cloud Seeding Enhance Precipitation? 176
Precipitation Types 177
Stability and Cloud Rain 177
Development 143 Snow 178
Atmospheric Stability 144
Are Raindrops Tear Shaped? 179
Determining Stability 145
A Stable Atmosphere 145 Snowflakes and Snowfall 179
An Unstable Atmosphere 147 Focus On A Special Topic 7.4
A Conditionally Unstable Atmosphere 148 Snowing When the Air Temperature Is Well Above Freezing 180
Causes of Instability 148 A Blanket of Snow 182
Focus On A Special Topic 6.1 Focus On A Special Topic 7.5
Subsidence Inversions—Put a Lid on It 150 Sounds and Snowfalls 183
Cloud Development 152 Sleet and Freezing Rain 183
Focus On A Special Topic 6.2 Focus On An Observation 7.6
Atmospheric Stability and Windy Afternoons— Aircraft Icing 185
Hold On to Your Hat 153
Convection and Clouds 153
Topography and Clouds 156
Determining Convective Cloud Bases 157
Clouds That Form Downwind of Mountains 159
Changing Cloud Forms 159
Focus On An Advanced Topic 6.4
Adiabatic Charts 160
Summary 164
Key Terms 164
© Robert Henson
Contents vii
Snow Grains and Snow Pellets 186 Curved Winds Around Lows and Highs Aloft—
Hail 186 Gradient Winds 215
Measuring Precipitation 189 Winds on Upper-Level Charts 216
Instruments 189 Focus On An Observation 8.4
Doppler Radar and Precipitation 190 Estimating Wind Direction and Pressure Patterns Aloft By
Measuring Precipitation from Space 192 Watching Clouds 217
Summary 192
Surface Winds 218
Key Terms 192
Questions for Review 193 Focus On An Observation 8.5
Questions for Thought 193 Winds Aloft in the Southern Hemisphere 219
Problems and Exercises 194 Winds and Vertical Air Motions 220
The Hydrostatic Equation 222
Chapter 8 Summary 222
Key Terms 223
Air Pressure and Winds 197 Questions for Review 223
Atmospheric Pressure 198 Questions for Thought 223
Horizontal Pressure Variations: A Tale of Two Cities 198 Problems and Exercises 224
Daily Pressure Variations 199
Pressure Measurements 200
Focus On A Special Topic 8.1 Chapter 9
The Atmosphere Obeys the Gas Law 202
Pressure Readings 203 Wind: Small-Scale and Local
Surface and Upper-Level Charts 203 Systems 227
Flying on a Constant Pressure Surface—High to Low,
Scales of Atmospheric Motion 228
Look Out Below 208
Small-Scale Winds Interacting with the Environment 229
Friction and Turbulence in the Boundary Layer 229
Newton’s Laws of Motion 209 Eddies—Big and Small 231
Forces That Influence the Winds 209 The Strong Force of the Wind 232
Pressure-Gradient Force 209
Coriolis Force 210
Straight-Line Flow Aloft—Geostrophic Winds 213 Eddies and “Air Pockets” 233

Wind and Soil 234
A Mathematical Look at the Geostrophic Wind 214
Wind and Snow 234
Wind and Vegetation 235
Wind and Water 236
Local Wind Systems 237
Pedaling into the Wind 238
Thermal Circulations 238
Sea and Land Breezes 239
Mountain and Valley Breezes 241
Katabatic Winds 242
Chinook (Foehn) Winds 243
Snow Eaters and Rapid Temperature Changes 244
Santa Ana Winds 245
Desert Winds 247
Seasonally Changing Winds—The Monsoon 249
Determining Wind Direction and Speed 252
The Influence of Prevailing Winds 252
© Robert Henson
Wind Measurements 254
Wind Energy 255
viii Contents
Summary 258 Focus On A Special Topic 11.4
Key Terms 258 The Wavy Warm Front 312
Questions for Review 258 Drylines 312
Questions for Thought 259 Occluded Fronts 313
Problems and Exercises 260 Upper-Air Fronts 315
Summary 317
Chapter 10 Key Terms 317
Wind: Global Systems 263 Problems and Exercises 319
General Circulation of the Atmosphere 264
Single-Cell Model 264 Chapter 12
Three-Cell Model 265
Average Surface Winds and Pressure: The Real Middle-Latitude Cyclones 321
World 267
The General Circulation and Precipitation Patterns 269 Polar Front Theory 322
Average Wind Flow and Pressure Patterns Aloft 270 Where Do Mid-Latitude Cyclones Tend to Form? 323
Focus On An Observation 10.1 Focus On A Special Topic 12.1
The “Dishpan” Experiment 272 Nor’easters 325
Jet Streams 272 Vertical Structure of Deep Dynamic Lows 326
The Formation of Jet Streams 274 The Roles of Converging and Diverging Air 327
Other Jet Streams 275 Focus On A Special Topic 12.2
Atmosphere-Ocean Interactions 276 A Closer Look at Convergence and Divergence 328
Global Wind Patterns and Surface Ocean Currents 277 Upper-Level Waves and Mid-Latitude Cyclones 328
Upwelling 278 The Necessary Ingredients for a Developing Mid-Latitude
El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation 279 Cyclone 330
Pacific Decadal Oscillation 285 Upper-Air Support 330
Focus On An Special Topic 10.2 The Role of the Jet Stream 331
The Challenge of Predicting El Niño and La Niña 286 Focus On A Special Topic 12.3
North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation 287 Jet Streaks and Storms 332
Summary 290 Conveyor Belt Model of Mid-Latitude Cyclones 333
Key Terms 290 A Developing Mid-Latitude Cyclone—The March Storm
Questions for Review 290 of 1993 334
Questions for Thought 291 Vorticity, Divergence, and Developing Mid-Latitude
Problems and Exercises 291 Cyclones 337
Vorticity on a Spinning Planet 337
Chapter 11
Air Masses and Fronts 293

Air Masses 294
Source Regions 294
Classification 294
Air Masses of North America 295
Lake-Effect (Enhanced) Snows 297
The Return of The Siberian Express 300
Rivers in the Atmosphere 303
Fronts 305
© Robert Henson
Stationary Fronts 306
Cold Fronts 306
Warm Fronts 309
Contents ix
Focus On A Special Topic 12.4 Why Computer-Based Forecasts Can Go Awry and Steps
Vorticity and Longwaves 339 to Improve Them 355
Vorticity Advection and Shortwaves 340 Other Forecasting Techniques 359
Putting It All Together—A Massive Snowstorm 341 Focus On An Observation 13.4
Polar Lows 342 Forecasting Temperature Advection by Watching the Clouds 362
Summary 343 Time Range of Forecasts 364
Key Terms 343 Accuracy and Skill in Weather Forecasting 365
Focus On Social And Economic Impacts 13.5
Problems and Exercises 344 Weather Prediction and the Marketplace 366
Weather Forecasting Using Surface Charts 368
Chapter 13 Determining the Movement of Weather Systems 368
Weather Forecasting 347 TV Weathercasters—How Do They Do It? 369
A Forecast for Six Cities 370
Weather Observations 348 Using Forecasting Tools to Predict the Weather 373
Surface and Upper-Air Data 348 Help from the 500-mb Chart 374
Satellite Products 348 The Models Provide Assistance 375
Doppler Radar 348 A Valid Forecast 376
Focus On A Special Topic 13.1 Satellite and Upper-Air Assistance 376
The Forecast Funnel 349 A Day of Rain and Wind 377
Acquisition of Weather Information 350 Summary 379
Weather Forecasting Tools 350 Key Terms 379
Focus On A Special Topic 13.2 Questions for Review 379
The Forecast in Words and Pictures 351 Questions for Thought 380
Weather Forecasting Methods 353
The Computer and Weather Forecasting: Numerical
Weather Prediction 353
Chapter 14
The Thickness Chart—A Forecasting Tool 354
Thunderstorms 383
Thunderstorm Types 384
Ordinary Cell Thunderstorms 385
Multicell Thunderstorms 387
Supercell Thunderstorms 394
Thunderstorms and the Dryline 398
Thunderstorms and Flooding 399
The Terrifying Flash Flood in the Big Thompson Canyon 400
Distribution of Thunderstorms 402
Lightning and Thunder 403
How Far Away Is the Lightning? Start Counting 404
Electrification of Clouds 404
ELVES in the Atmosphere 405
The Lightning Stroke 406
Lightning Detection and Suppression 409
Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree 410
Summary 412
Key Terms 412
NASA
x Contents
Chapter 15
Tornadoes 415
Tornadoes: A Few Facts 416
Tornado Life Cycle 416
Tornado Occurrence and Distribution 417
Tornado Winds 419
The Weird World of Tornado Damage 420
Tornado Outbreaks 423
The Evolution of Tornado Watches and Warnings 424
© Robert Henson
Tornado Formation 425
Supercell Tornadoes 425
Nonsupercell Tornadoes 429
Forecasting Severe Thunderstorms and Tornadoes 430
Waterspouts 431
Observing Tornadoes and Severe Weather 432 Hugo, 1989 457
Storm Chasing and Mobile Radar 434 Andrew, 1992 457
Summary 436 Ivan, 2004 458
Key Terms 436 Katrina and Rita, 2005 459
Questions for Thought 437 Focus On An Observation 16.3
Problems and Exercises 437 The Record-Setting Atlantic Hurricane Seasons of 2004
and 2005 460
Sandy, 2012 462
Chapter 16 Destructive Tropical Cyclones around the World 463
Hurricanes 439 Hurricanes in a Warmer World 465
Tropical Weather 440 Hurricane Watches and Warnings 466
Anatomy of a Hurricane 440 Hurricane Forecasting Techniques 467
Hurricane Formation and Dissipation 443 FOCUS ON AN OBSERVATION 16.5
The Right Environment 443 A Forecast Challenge: The Devastating Hurricanes of 2017 468
The Developing Storm 444
Modifying Hurricanes 468
The Storm Dies Out 445
Summary 470
Hurricane Stages of Development 445
Key Terms 470
Investigating the Storm 446
Hurricane Movement 447
Focus On A Special Topic 16.1 Problems and Exercises 471
How Do Hurricanes Compare with Middle-Latitude
Cyclones? 449
Chapter 17
Naming Hurricanes and Tropical Storms 451
Devastating Winds, the Storm Surge, and Flooding 451 Global Climate 473
Classifying Hurricane Strength 453
Focus On A Special Topic 16.2 A World with Many Climates 474
Devastation from a Tropical Storm: The Case of Allison 455 Global Temperatures 474
Global Precipitation 475
Hurricane-Spawned Tornadoes 456
Hurricane Fatalities 456 Focus On A Special Topic 17.1
Some Notable Hurricanes 457 Precipitation Extremes 478
Galveston, 1900 457 Climatic Classification 479
New England, 1938 457 The Ancient Greeks 479
Camille, 1969 457 The Köppen System 479
Thornthwaite’s System 479
Contents xi
The Global Pattern of Climate 480 Climate Change Caused by Natural Events 510
Tropical Moist Climates (Group A) 480 Climate Change: Feedback Mechanisms 510
Dry Climates (Group B) 486 Climate Change: Plate Tectonics and Mountain
Moist Subtropical Mid-Latitude Climates Building 511
(Group C) 488 Climate Change: Variations in Earth’s Orbit 513
Focus On An Observation 17.2 Climate Change: Variations in Solar Output 516
A Desert with Clouds and Drizzle 489 Climate Change: Atmospheric Particles 516
Climate Change Caused by Human (Anthropogenic)
Focus On A Special Topic 17.3 Activities 518
When Does a Dry Spell Become a Drought? 492 Climate Change: Aerosols Injected into the Lower
Moist Continental Climates (Group D) 492 Atmosphere 518
Polar Climates (Group E) 495 Climate Change: Greenhouse Gases 519
Focus On An Environmental Issue 17.4 Climate Change: Land Use Changes 519
Are Plant Hardiness Zones Shifting Northward? 498 Focus On An Environmental Issue 18.2
Highland Climates (Group H) 499 Nuclear Winter, Cold Summers, and Dead Dinosaurs 520
Summary 500 Focus On A Special Topic 18.3
Key Terms 500 The Sahel—An Example of Climatic Variability and Human
Questions for Review 500 Existence 521
Climate Change: Global Warming 522
Recent Global Warming: Perspective 522
The Extremes of 2011 and 2012: Did Climate Change Play
Chapter 18
a Role? 523
Earth’s Changing Climate 503 Future Climate Change: Projections 524

Reconstructing Past Climates 504 Climate Models: How Do They Work? 526
Climate Throughout the Ages 506
Temperature Trends During the Past 1000 Years 507 Focus On An Environmental Issue 18.6
Ozone and the Ozone Hole: Their Influence on Climate
Change 529
The Ocean’s Influence on Rapid Climate Change 508
Temperature Trends During the Past 100-Plus Years 509 Consequences of Climate Change: The Possibilities 529
Climate Change: Efforts to Curb 532
Summary 534
Key Terms 534
Chapter 19
Air Pollution 537
A Brief History of Air Pollution 538
Types and Sources of Air Pollutants 539
Indoor Air Pollution 541
Principal Air Pollutants 542
Ozone in the Troposphere 544
Ozone in the Stratosphere 545
The Ozone Hole 548
Air Pollution: Trends and Patterns 549
Factors That Affect Air Pollution 552
NASA
The Role of the Wind 552
xii Contents
The Role of Stability and Inversions 553 APPENDIX D
Focus On An Observation 19.3 Average Annual Global Precipitation A-10
Smokestack Plumes 555
The Role of Topography 556 APPENDIX E
Severe Air Pollution Potential 556 Instant Weather Forecast Chart A-12
Five Days in Donora—An Air Pollution Episode 558 APPENDIX F
Changing GMT and UTC to Local Time A-14
Air Pollution and the Urban Environment 558
Focus On Social And Economic Impact 19.5
APPENDIX G
Heat Waves and Air Pollution: A Deadly Team 560 Standard Atmosphere A-15
Acid Deposition 560
Summary 563 APPENDIX H
Key Terms 563 Adiabatic Chart A-16
Questions for Thought 564 Glossary G-1
Problems and Exercises 565 Additional Reading Material R-1
Index I-1
Chapter 20
Light, Color, and Atmospheric

Optics 567
White and Colors 568
Clouds and Scattered Light 568
Blue Skies and Hazy Days 568
White Clouds and Dark Bases 569
Crepuscular and Anticrepuscular Rays 571
Red Suns and Blue Moons 572
Twinkling, Twilight, and the Green Flash 573
The Mirage: Seeing Is Not Believing 576
The Fata Morgana 577
Halos, Sundogs, and Sun Pillars 577
Rainbows 580
Can It Be a Rainbow If It Is Not Raining? 583
Coronas, Glories, and Heiligenschein 583
Summary 586
Key Terms 586
APPENDIX A
Units, Conversions, Abbreviations, and Equations A-1
Appendix B
Weather Symbols and the Station Model A-4
© C. Donald Ahrens
APPENDIX C
Humidity and Dew-Point Tables (Psychrometric Tables) A-6
Contents xiii
Preface
T
he world is an ever-changing picture of naturally occurring to the world around them. To assist with this endeavor, a color
events. From drought and famine to devastating floods, Cloud Chart appears at the end of this text. The Cloud Chart
some of the greatest challenges we face come in the form can be separated from the book and used as a learning tool in
of natural disasters created by weather. Yet dealing with weather any place one chooses to observe the sky. Numerous full-color
and climate is an inevitable part of our lives. Sometimes it is illustrations and photographs illustrate key features of the at-
as small as deciding what to wear for the day or how to plan a mosphere, stimulate interest, and show how exciting the study
vacation. But it can also have life-shattering consequences, es- of weather can be.
pecially for those who are victims of a hurricane or a tornado. After an introductory chapter on the composition, origin,
Weather has always been front-page news, but in recent years, and structure of the atmosphere, the book covers energy, tem-
extreme weather seems to receive an ever-increasing amount of perature, moisture, precipitation, and winds. Next come chapters
coverage. From the destruction wrought by extreme storms to the that deal with air masses and middle-latitude cyclones, followed
quiet, but no less devastating, impacts of severe drought, weather by weather prediction and severe storms, including a separate
has enormous impact on our lives. The longer-term challenges of chapter devoted to tornadoes. Wrapping up the book are chapters
an evolving climate also demand our attention, whether it be ris- on hurricanes, global climate, climate change, air pollution, and
ing sea levels, record global temperatures, intensified downpours, atmospheric optics.
or the retreat of Arctic sea ice. Thanks in part to the rise of social This book is structured to provide maximum flexibility to
media, more people than ever are sharing their weather-related instructors of atmospheric science courses, with chapters gener-
observations, impressions, and photographs with the world at ally designed so they can be covered in any desired order. For
large. For these and many other reasons, interest in meteorol- example, the chapter on atmospheric optics, Chapter 20, is self-
ogy (the study of the atmosphere) continues to grow. One of the contained and can be covered before or after any chapter. In-
reasons that meteorology is such an engaging science to study structors, then, are able to tailor this text to their particular needs.
is that the atmosphere is a universally accessible laboratory for Each chapter contains at least two Focus sections, which
everyone. Although the atmosphere will always provide chal- expand on material in the main text or explore a subject closely
lenges for us, as research and technology advance, our ability to related to what is being discussed. Focus sections fall into one
understand and predict our atmosphere improves as well. We of five distinct categories: Observations, Special Topics, Envi-
hope this book serves to assist you as you develop your own per- ronmental Issues, Advanced Topics, and Social and Economic
sonal understanding and appreciation of our planet’s dynamic, Impacts. Some include material that is not always found in intro-
spectacular atmosphere. ductory meteorology textbooks, such as temperature extremes,
cloud seeding, and the weather on other planets. Others help
to bridge theory and practice. Focus sections new to this edi-
tion include “GOES-16: New Windows on the Atmosphere,”
About This Book (Chapter 5), “Rivers in the Atmosphere” (Chapter 11), “The
Weird World of Tornado Damage” (Chapter 15), and “A Forecast
Meteorology Today is written for college-level students taking Challenge: The Devastating Hurricanes of 2017” (Chapter 16).
an introductory course on the atmospheric environment. As Quantitative discussions of important equations, such as the
was the case in previous editions, no special prerequisites are geostrophic wind equation and the hydrostatic equation, are
necessary. The main purpose of the text is to convey meteo- found in Focus sections on advanced topics.
rological concepts in a visual and practical manner, while si- Set apart as “Weather Watch” features in each chapter is
multaneously providing students with a comprehensive back- weather information that may not be commonly known, yet per-
ground in basic meteorology. This twelfth edition includes tains to the topic under discussion. Designed to bring the reader
up-to-date information on important topics, including cli- into the text, most of these weather highlights relate to some in-
mate change, ozone depletion, air quality, and El Niño. Also teresting weather fact or astonishing event.
included are discussions of high-profile weather events, such Each chapter incorporates other effective learning aids:
as droughts, heat waves, tornado outbreaks, and hurricanes of
recent years. ●● A major topic outline begins each chapter.
Written expressly for the student, this book emphasizes the ●● Interesting introductory pieces draw the reader naturally
understanding and application of meteorological principles. into the main text.
The text encourages watching the weather so that it becomes ●● Important terms are boldfaced, with their definitions
“alive,” allowing readers to immediately apply textbook material appearing in the glossary or in the text.
xv
●● Key phrases are italicized. Resources—an ideal one-stop site for classroom discussion
●● English equivalents of metric units in most cases are imme- and research projects for all things geoscience! Broken into the
diately provided in parentheses. four key course areas (Geography, Geology, Meteorology, and
●● A brief review of the main points is placed toward the mid- Oceanography), you can easily get to the most relevant content
dle of most chapters. available for your course. You and your students will have access
to the latest information from trusted academic journals, news
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outlets, and magazines. You also will receive access to statistics,
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allowing students to review and reinforce their knowledge
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●● Questions for Thought require students to synthesize resource center website, a course delivery platform, or a Learn-
learned concepts for deeper understanding. ing Management System. More than 70 percent of students
●● Problems and Exercises require mathematical calculations surveyed said that it was unlike anything they have ever seen
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●● References to more than 20 Concept Animations are com- bines all of your digital assets—readings, multimedia, activities,
piled on pp. xix. These animations convey an immediate study tools, and assessments—into a singular learning path to
appreciation of how a process works and help students visu- improve student outcomes. The twelfth edition MindTap course
alize the more difficult concepts in meteorology. Animations contains: Case Study activities with summaries and questions
can be found in the Earth Science MindTap for Meteorology written by co-author Bob Henson, new Concept Animations,
Today. and auto-graded homework problems and exercises adapted
from the text or newly written by the authors.
Eight appendices conclude the book. In addition, at the end
of the book, a compilation of supplementary reading material is
presented, as is an extensive glossary.
On the endsheet at the back of the book is a geophysical map
of North America. The map serves as a quick reference for locat- Changes in the Twelfth Edition
ing states, provinces, and geographical features, such as mountain The authors have carried out extensive updates and revisions
ranges and large bodies of water. to this twelfth edition of Meteorology Today, reflecting the
ever-changing nature of the field and the atmosphere itself.
Dozens of new or revised color illustrations and many new
photos have been added to help visualize the excitement of the
Supplemental Material and atmosphere.
Technology Support ●● Chapter 1, “Earth and Its Atmosphere,” continues to serve
as a broad overview of the atmosphere. Material that puts
TECHNOLOGY FOR THE INSTRUCTOR meteorology in the context of the scientific method lays the
Instructor Companion Website Everything you need for your foundation for the rest of the book. Among recent events
course in one place! This collection of book-specific lecture and now referenced in this chapter are the severe flooding over
class tools is available online via www.cengage.com/login. Ac- the Southern Plains and Southeast in 2015 and the Houston
cess and download PowerPoint presentations, images, instruc- flash flood of April 2016.
tor’s manual, and more. ●● Chapter 2, “Warming and Cooling Earth and Its Atmo-
Cognero Test Bank Cengage Learning Testing Powered by Cog- sphere,” contains up-to-date statistics and background on
nero is a flexible, online system that allows you to: greenhouse gases and climate change, topics covered in
more detail later in the book.
●● Author, edit, and manage test bank content from multiple
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●● Create multiple test versions in an instant
perature record. A number of figures and tables have been
●● Deliver tests from your LMS, your classroom, or wherever updated so that they include data from the most recent ref-
you want erence period (1981–2010).
Global Geoscience Watch Updated several times a day, the ●● Chapter 4, “Atmospheric Humidity,” continues to cover
Global Geoscience Watch is a focused portal into GREENR— essential concepts related to this important aspect of the
our Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and N
atural atmosphere. A section on relative humidity and human
xvi preface
discomfort now stresses the danger of heat buildup in a produce. Storm chasing is discussed in the context of the
closed vehicle, independent of humidity. VORTEX and VORTEX2 field campaigns and the tragic
●● Chapter 5, “Condensation: Dew, Fog, and Clouds,” includes deaths of several storm researchers in 2013.
a new Focus section spotlighting the GOES-16 satellite and ●● Chapter 16, “Hurricanes,” includes extensive background
the many new capacities of the GOES-R series. on recent and historically significant tropical cyclones, as
●● Chapter 6, “Stability and Cloud Development,” discusses well as new and updated illustrations depicting storm surge
atmospheric stability and instability and the resulting effects processes and wind-speed probabilities. A new Focus sec-
on cloud formation in a carefully sequenced manner, with tion covers the devastating hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and
numerous illustrations and several Focus sections helping Maria of 2017.
to make these complex concepts understandable. A new ●● Chapter 17, “Global Climate,” continues to serve as a stand-
graphic highlights the differences between absolutely stable, alone unit on global climatology and classification schemes.
absolutely unstable, and conditionally unstable conditions. Recent updates and revisions have incorporated the 1981–
●● “Precipitation” (Chapter 7) includes updated information 2010 United States climate averages.
on precipitation measurement from satellites, including the ●● Chapter 18, “Earth’s Changing Climate,” has undergone
new Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. extensive updating to reflect recent developments and find-
●● Chapter 8, “Air Pressure and Winds,” includes a recently ings, including the sequence of record-setting global tem-
enhanced description and revised illustrations of the inter- peratures in 2014, 2015, and 2016; regional variations in
play between the pressure gradient and Coriolis forces in sea-level rise; and the Paris climate agreement.
cyclonic and anticylonic flow. ●● Chapter 19, “Air Pollution,” reflects a number of updates,
●● Chapter 9, “Wind: Small-Scale and Local Systems,” refer- including the vast number of deaths associated with both
ences the destructive Midwest windstorm of March 2017 indoor and outdoor air pollution and the importance of the
and includes updated information on the continued growth smallest airborne particulates as a health hazard.
of wind energy . ●● The book concludes with Chapter 20, “Light, Color, and
●● Chapter 10, “Wind: Global Systems,” features several new Atmospheric Optics,” which uses exciting photos and art to
images as well as updates on a number of phenomena, convey the beauty of the atmosphere. Several compelling
including the El Niño event of 2014–2016, the California new photos have been included.
drought of 2011–2016, and recent trends in the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation.
●● In Chapter 11, “Air Masses and Fronts,” the discussion of
occluded fronts has been revised to incorporate recent per- Acknowledgments
spectives, and a new Focus box illuminates the concept of
atmospheric rivers. Many people have contributed to this twelfth edition of Me-
●● Chapter 12, “Middle-Latitude Cyclones,” continues to pro- teorology Today. Special thanks goes to Charles Preppernau
vide a thorough and accessible introduction to this impor- for his care in rendering beautiful artwork and to Alyson
tant topic. The Focus section on nor’easters has been revised Platt for professional and conscientious copy editing. We are
to center around the intense storm of January 2016. indebted to the team at SPi Global, including Matthew Fox
and Catherine Higginbotham, who took the photos, art, and
●● Chapter 13, “Weather Forecasting,” has undergone a major manuscript and turned them into a beautiful end product in
restructuring and revision. After introducing the observa- both print and digital forms. Special thanks go to all the people
tions used by forecasters, the chapter includes an expla- at Cengage who worked on this edition, especially Brendan
nation of numerical weather models and other forecast Killion, Lauren Oliveira, Hal Humphrey, and Rebecca Berardy
techniques, the types of forecasts that apply to various time Schwartz.
scales, and the difference between forecast accuracy and Thanks to our friends who provided photos and to those re-
skill. A new illustration depicts the usefulness of short-term, viewers who offered comments and suggestions for this edition,
high-resolution mesoscale models in predicting showers and including:
thunderstorms.
Eric Aldrich, University of Missouri
●● Chapter 14, “Thunderstorms,” includes updated discussions
of such topics as microbursts, heat bursts, and record hail- Peter Blanken, University of Colorado Boulder
stones, featuring several new photos. The use of lightning Kerry Doyle, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
mapping arrays to map flashes in three dimensions has also
Daehyun Kim, University of Kentucky
been added.
●● Chapter 15, “Tornadoes,” includes a new Focus section on Ryan Fogt, Ohio University
the surprising types of damage that tornadic winds can John Harrington, Kansas State University
PREFACE xvii
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
least for the moment safe in unconsciousness from the screaming, tearing,
grabbing world.
The next morning, then, when Laura came down punctually at nine
o’clock to breakfast—for however late she went to bed her restless vitality,
once it was broad daylight, prevented her being able to stay there, which
made her unpopular in country houses,—she found Charles in the dining-
room, standing with his back to the fire.
‘How much you must love me,’ she remarked sarcastically, being, after a
bad night, a little cross.
‘I don’t love you at all at this moment,’ said Charles.
‘Then is it breakfast you want?’
‘No,’ said Charles.
‘Can it be Sally?’
‘Yes,’ said Charles.
‘Fancy,’ said Laura; and poured herself out some coffee.
‘How is she?’ asked Charles after a pause, ignoring such silliness.
‘Oh, quite well,’ said Laura. ‘She was tired last night.’
‘Tired! I should think so,’ said Charles severely. ‘I’ve come to ask her if
she will let me take her into the country for the day. It’s my intention to get
her away from your crowd for a few hours.’
‘Rescue her, in fact,’ said Laura, munching, her back to him.
‘Exactly,’ said Charles, who was angry.
‘I expect Tom’—Tom was Lord Streatley—‘will be here soon, wanting
to rescue her too,’ remarked Laura, glancing out of the window to where
she could see Charles’s touring car standing, and no chauffeur. ‘He won’t
bring his chauffeur either. Have some?’ she asked, holding up the coffee-
pot.
‘Can’t you be a little beast when you give your mind to it,’ said Charles.
‘Well, you scolded me last night because I had rescued her, and now here
you are——’
Laura broke off, and hastily drank some coffee. She didn’t really want to
quarrel with Charles; she never had yet. In fact, till Sally appeared on the
scene she had never quarrelled with any of her family. Besides in her heart,
though she was cross that morning, not having slept well for the first time
for years because of being worried and conscience-stricken and anxious,
she was glad that Charles should take Sally off her hands. She had so much
to do that day, so many important engagements; and if Sally went with her
everybody would instantly be upset, and if she left her at home she would
be a prey to Streatley. Other people wishing to prey on her could be kept
out by a simple order to the servants, but not her own brother. And
Streatley, when he was infatuated, was a gross creature, and there would be
more trouble and wretchedness for poor Kitty his wife, let alone God
knowing what mightn’t happen to Sally.
If Sally had to be with one or the other of them, Charles was far the
better; but what a very great pity it was, Laura thought as she pretended to
be absorbed in her breakfast, that she hadn’t let her go back the day before
to where she belonged. It wasn’t any sort of fun quarrelling with her dearest
brother Charles, and seeing him look as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Besides,
Sally was going to have a baby. At least, so she had informed Laura during
the night, basing her conviction on the close resemblance between her
behaviour in fainting, and her subsequent behaviour when she came to in
being violently sick, and the behaviour of somebody called Mrs. Ooper,
who had lived next door at Islington, and every spring, for seven years
running, had fainted just like that and then been sick,—and sure as fate,
Sally had told Laura in a feeble murmur, there at Christmas in each of those
seven years had been another little baby.
‘I don’t want no doctor,’ she had whispered, putting out a cold hand and
catching at Laura’s arm when, dismayed at Sally’s sickness just as they had
at last been able to undress her and get her into bed, she was running to the
telephone to call hers up.
‘But, my darling,’ Laura had said, bending over her and smoothing back
the hair from her damp forehead with quick, anxious movements, ‘he’ll
give you something to make you well again.’
‘No, ’e won’t,’ Sally had whispered, looking up at her with a faint, proud
smile, ‘ ’cos I ain’t ill. I know wot’s ’appenin’ all right. It’s a little baby.’
And then she had told Laura, who had to stoop down close to hear, about
Mrs. Ooper.
Well, Laura didn’t know much about babies before they were born, but
she was sure a person who was expecting any ought to be with her husband.
She couldn’t kidnap whole families; she hadn’t bargained for more than one
Luke. And during the few hours that remained of the night, after she had
seen Sally go off to sleep with an expression of beatitude on her face, she
had tossed about in her own bed in a fever of penitence.
When would she learn not to interfere? When would she learn to hang on
to her impulses, and resist sudden temptation? Up to then she had never
even tried to. And a vision of what Sally’s unfortunate young husband must
be feeling, and of course his mother too, who might be tiresome but hadn’t
deserved this, produced the most painful sensations in Laura’s naturally
benevolent heart.
She would make amends,—oh, she would make amends. She would take
Sally to Cambridge herself on Saturday, when she was through with her
London engagements, and find rooms for her, and explain everything to the
young man, and beg his pardon. Perhaps, too, she could tell him a little of
Sally’s fear of his mother, and perhaps she might be able to persuade him
not to let her live with them; for Laura had often noticed, though each time,
being a member of the Labour Party, with shame and regret, that the
persuasions of the daughter of a duke are readily listened to. But she didn’t
want to make amends that day,—she was too busy; and she couldn’t send a
telegram, or anything like that, letting the Lukes know where Sally was,
because it would only bring them about her ears in hordes, and she simply
hadn’t time that day for hordes. Laura’s intentions, that is, were admirable,
but deferred.
‘Isn’t she coming down?’ asked Charles at last, for Laura, with her back
to him pretending to eat her breakfast, had said no more.
‘She’s having breakfast upstairs,’ said Laura.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, annoyed.
‘Because you say I’m a little beast, so I may as well do the thing
thoroughly.’
Charles went across to the bell.
‘No—don’t ring,’ said Laura jumping up. ‘I’ll go and tell her.’ And she
went to the door, but hesitated, and came back to him, and laid her hand on
his arm.
He withdrew his arm.
‘Charles—are you so angry with me?’ she asked.
‘You’ve behaved simply disgracefully,’ he answered in a voice of deep
disgust. ‘You would sacrifice anybody to provide your friends with a new
sensation.’
Laura looked at him. It was true; or had been true. But she wasn’t going
to ever any more, she was going to turn over a new leaf—next day, when
she had finished with all her tiresome and important engagements.
‘You sacrificed that child’—began Charles, passionately indignant when
he thought of the unconscious figure on the floor.
‘Don’t you sacrifice her,’ interrupted Laura. And when Charles stared at
her, too angry for speech, she added hastily, ‘Oh, don’t let’s quarrel, Charles
darling. I’m sure you’ll take the greatest care of her. I’ll go and fetch her.
Drive slowly, won’t you—and bring her back safe. Tomorrow I’m going to
hand her over to her husband.’
§
Now in his heart Charles knew that this was the only right thing to do.
Sally ought never to have been taken away from her husband, and, having
been taken, ought to be returned to him. At once. Not tomorrow, but at
once. He didn’t know the circumstances, except what Laura had hurriedly
told him the night before after supper, about having found her in a train,
dissolved in tears because her father was sending her back to a mother-in-
law who was awful to her, and she had brought her home with her just to
comfort her, just to let her recover; but it was plain that such conduct on
Laura’s part was indefensible. If ever anybody ought to be safe at home it
was Sally. She should be taken there without losing a moment. Disgraceful
of Laura to put it off for another day and night, while she kept her fool
engagements. Having behaved so wickedly, she ought, without losing an
hour, to set things straight again.
Charles felt strongly about Laura’s conduct; yet, though he himself could
have set things straight by simply driving Sally back to the Lukes that
morning, he didn’t do so. That was because he couldn’t. He was in love,
and therefore couldn’t.
There are some things it is impossible to do when you are in love,
thought Charles, who recognised and admitted his condition, and one is to
hand over the beloved to a brute. Luke was a brute. Clearly he was, from
what Sally had said the night before. He was either angry—angry with that
little angel!—or he oh-Sallied. A cold shudder ran down Charles’s spine.
The thought made him feel really sick, for he was a tender-stomached as
well as a tender-hearted young man, and possessed an imagination which
was sometimes too lively for comfort. It wouldn’t be his hand that delivered
her up to a young brute; nor, he suddenly determined, on the butler’s
hurrying out to Laura, who was standing on the steps seeing him and Sally
off, and saying with urgency, ‘Lord Streatley to speak to Mrs. Luke on the
telephone,’ would it be his hand that delivered her up to an old one. At once
on hearing the message he started the car, and was out of the square before
Laura could say anything. There was Sally, tucked up beside him in Laura’s
furs, and looking more beautiful in broad sunshine even than he
remembered her the night before,—a child of light and grace if ever there
was one, thought Charles, a thing of simple sweetness and obedience and
trust; and was he going to bring her back to another evening’s exploitation
by his sister and her precious friends, with that old scoundrel, his elder
brother, all over her?
Never, said Charles to himself; and headed his car for Crippenham.
§
Crippenham was where his father was. What so safe as a refuge for Sally
as his father? He was ninety-three, and he was deaf. A venerable age; a
convenient failing. Convenient indeed in this case, for the Duke, like
Charles, took little pleasure in the speech of the lower classes. Also he was
alone there till Laura should come back to him on the following day,
because nobody was ever invited to Crippenham, which was his yearly rest-
cure, and nobody ever dared even try to disturb its guarded repose.
Charles felt that it was, besides being the only, the very place. Here Sally
could be kept remote and hidden till Laura—not he; he wouldn’t be able to
do such a thing—restored her to where she belonged; here she would be
safe from the advances of Streatley, who couldn’t follow her anywhere his
father was, because the old man had an aversion to the four surviving fruits
of his first marriage, and freely showed it; and here he would have her to
himself for a whole evening, and part at least of the next day.
Also, it would serve Laura right. She would get a fright, and think all
sorts of things had happened when they didn’t come back. Well, thought
Charles, she deserved everything she got. Under the cloak of protecting and
comforting Sally she had been completely selfish and cruel. Charles was
himself astonished at the violence of his feelings towards Laura, with whom
he had always been such friends. He didn’t investigate these feelings,
however; he didn’t investigate any of his other feelings either, not excepting
the one he had when he asked Sally, soon after they had turned the corner
out of the square, if she were warm enough, and she looked up shyly at him,
and smiled as she politely thanked him, for his feelings since the evening
before no longer bore investigation. They were a mixed lot, a strong lot.
And it vexed Charles to know that even as early in the day as this, and not
much after half past nine in the morning, he wished to kiss Sally.
This wasn’t at all the proper spirit of rescue. He drove in silence. He
couldn’t remember having wished to kiss a woman before at half past nine
in the morning, and it annoyed him.
Sally, of course, was silent too. Not for her to speak without being
spoken to, and she sat mildly wondering that she should be going along in a
car at all. Laura had come up to her bedroom and said her brother was there,
wanting to take her out for a little fresh air. Do her good, Laura had said,
though Sally had never known good come of fresh air yet; but, passive as a
parcel, she had let herself be taken. Why, however, she should be going for
a joy-ride with this lord she didn’t know, though she supposed it was as
good a way as another of getting through the intimidating day among the
picks of the basket, and anyhow this way there was only one of them, and
anyhow he wasn’t the big old one with the hairs on his hands.
Queer lot, these picks, thought Sally. Didn’t seem to have anything to do
to keep them at home; seemed to spend their time going somewhere else.
Fidgety. And a vision of her own life as it was going to be once she was
settled in those rooms at Cambridge, getting ready for her little baby, and
cleaning up, and making things cosy for her man, flooded her heart with a
delicious warmth. Laura had promised to help her find the rooms, and take
her to where Mr. Luke would be. Mr. Luke wouldn’t be angry any more
now, thought Sally—he’d be too pleased about the little baby; and Laura
seemed to know exactly where they would find him, and had assured her he
wouldn’t want to have Mrs. Luke living with them. Laura was queer too, in
Sally’s eyes, but good. Indeed Sally, feeling very much the married woman
after what had happened the evening before, feeling motherly already,
feeling exalted by the coming of her baby to a height immensely above
mere spinsterhood, went so far as to say to herself of Laura, with indulgent
affection, ‘Nice kid.’
§
They lunched at Thaxted. It was still only half past twelve, and Charles
had managed to be three hours doing the forty odd miles. There was a
beautiful church at Thaxted in which he could linger with her, for he didn’t
want to get to Crippenham till tea-time, and Crippenham was only about
nine miles beyond Cambridge, off the Ely road between Waterbeach and
Swaffham Prior.
Up to Thaxted, Charles was filled with an embarrassingly strong desire
to appropriate Sally for ever to himself. He hadn’t an idea how to do it, but
that was his wish. She sat there silent, beautiful beyond his dreams—and
how often and how wistfully had he not dreamt of what a woman’s beauty
might be!—pathetic, defenceless in the midst of a rudely jostling, predatory
world, like a child with a priceless pearl in its hand among the poor and
hungry, and he passionately loved her. As the miles increased, so did
Charles’s passion. He looked at her sideways, and each time with a fresh
throb of wonder. He wove dreams about her; he saw visions of magic
casements and perilous seas, and she behind them, protected, guarded,
worshipped by him alone; his soul was filled with poetry; he was lifted
above himself by this Presence, this Manifestation; he thought in terms of
music; the whole of England sang.
But at Thaxted he felt different, and began to think Sally ought to be
with those she belonged to; and by the time it was evening, and he was
meditating alone in the garden at Crippenham, he was quite sure of it.
At Thaxted he ordered the best lunch he could—Sally’s mouth watered
as she listened,—and while it was being got ready he took her into the
church. She was inattentively polite. The brisk movements of a big, close-
cropped man in a cassock, who strode busily about and made what seemed
to Sally a curtsey each time he crossed the middle aisle, appeared to interest
her much more than Charles’s remarks on the clear, pale beauty of the
building. It was rather like taking a dog to look at things. Charles didn’t
consciously think this, but there was an unawareness about Sally when
faced by the beauties of Thaxted Church, and when faced, coming down, by
the beauties of certain bits of the country that singing April morning, which
was very like, Charles subconsciously thought, the unawareness of a dog.
Ah, but how far, far more beautiful she herself was than anything else, he
thought; how exquisite she looked in Laura’s chinchilla wrap, with the
exalted thoughts of the men who had built the church, thoughts frozen into
the delicate greys, and silvers, and rose-colours of that fair wide place, for
her background.
The man in the cassock left off doing whatever he was doing on catching
sight of Sally, and, after looking at her a moment, came up and offered, his
eyes on her face, to show them round the church; a little cluster of
Americans dissolved, and flowed towards her; and a woman dressed like a
nun broke off her prayers, and presently sidled up to where she stood.
Charles removed her.
Thaxted is a quiet place, and he strolled with her through its streets till
their food should be ready. Its streets, quiet to begin with, didn’t stay quiet.
The people of Thaxted, for some reason incomprehensible to Charles,
because no two women could be more unlike, seemed to think Sally was
Mary Pickford. He heard whispers to that effect. Did they then think, too,
that he was the person known, he understood, as Doug?
He removed her a second time.
Perhaps the inn was as good a place as any to wait in. He had, however,
to engage a private room for their lunch, because so many people came in
and wished to lunch too; and it was when Sally had eaten a great deal of
greengage tart and cream—bottled greengages, Charles feared, but she said
she liked them—and drunk a great deal of raspberry syrup which had, he
was sure, never been near real raspberries and couldn’t be very good for
her, and then, while he was having coffee and she tea—he had somehow
stumbled on the fact that she liked tea after meals, and he watched with
concern the strength and number of the cups she drank—it was then that she
began to thaw, and to talk.
Alas, that she should. Alas, that she didn’t remain for ever silent,
wonderful, mysterious, of God.
Once having started thawing, it wasn’t in Sally’s generous nature to stop.
She thawed and thawed, and Charles became more and more afflicted. Lord
Charles—so, the night before, she had learned he was called—was
evidently a chip off the same block as her friend Laura; kind, that is. See
what a lovely dinner he was giving her. Also he had been much more like a
gentleman that day, and less like somebody who wanted to be a husband;
and after the greengage tart she began to warm up, and by the time she had
got to the cups of tea she felt great confidence in Charles.
‘Kind, ain’t you,’ she said with her enchanting smile, when he
suggested, much against his convictions, another pot of tea.
‘Isn’t everybody?’ asked Charles.
‘Does their best,’ said Sally charitably. ‘But it’s up ’ill all the way for
some as I could mention.’
By this time Charles was already feeling chilled. The raspberry syrup
and the cups of strong tea had estranged him. This perfect girl, he thought,
ought to be choice too in her food, ought instinctively to reject things out of
bottles, and have no desire for a second helping of obviously bad pastry.
Still, she was very young. He too, at Eton, had liked bad tuck. After all,
queer as it seemed, she had only got to the age he was at then.
He made excuses for her; and, it appearing to him important that he
should be in possession of more facts about her than those Laura had told
him the evening before, said encouragingly, ‘Do mention them.’
Sally did. She mentioned everybody and everything; and soon he knew
as much about her hasty marriage, hurried on within a fortnight to the first
man who came along, her return from her honeymoon to South Winch, the
determination of her mother-in-law to keep her apart from her husband, her
flight, helped by her father-in-law, back to her father, his rejection of her,
and her intention to rejoin her husband next day at Cambridge whether he
liked it or not, as he could bear.
He couldn’t bear much. It wasn’t only how she said it, but what she said.
Charles, who had at first been afflicted by her language, was now afflicted
by her facts. He shifted uneasily in his chair. He smoked cigarette after
cigarette. His thin brown face was flushed, and he looked distressed. In that
strange, defective, yet all too vivid speech which he so deeply deplored, she
drew for him a picture of what seemed sheer exploitation, culminating in
his own sister’s flinging herself hilariously into the game. This child; this
helpless child, who would obey anybody, go anywhere, do anything she
was told—in Charles’s eyes, as he listened and drew her out, she became
the most pathetic thing on earth. Everybody, it appeared, first grabbed at her
and then wanted to get rid of her. Everybody; himself too. Yes, he too had
grabbed at her, under a mealy-mouthed pretence of helping her, and now he
too wanted—not to get rid of her, that seemed too violent, too brutal a way
of putting it, but to hand her over, to pass her on, to send her back to that
infernal young Luke, who himself was trying to escape from her and leave
her to his mother. And the courage of the child! It was the courage of
ignorance, of course, but still it seemed to Charles a lovely thing, that was
afraid of nothing, of no discomfort, of no hard work, if only she might be
with her husband in their own home. Charles discovered that that was
Sally’s one wish, and that her simple ambition appeared to be to do what
she called work her fingers to the bone on behalf of that odious youth.
‘Mr. Luke,’ said Sally, who was unacquainted with any reason why she
shouldn’t say everything she knew to anyone who wished to hear, ‘Mr.
Luke, ’e thinks ’e can’t afford a ’ome yet for me, and so——’
‘Then he oughtn’t to have married you,’ flashed out Charles, infuriated
by the young brute.
‘Seemed ’e couldn’t ’elp it,’ said Sally. ‘Seemed as if it ’ad to be. ’E
——’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ interrupted Charles impatiently, for he hated hearing
anything about Jocelyn’s emotions. ‘Of course, of course. That was a quite
foolish remark of mine.’
‘Five ’undred pounds a year ’e got,’ went on Sally, ‘and me able to make
sixpence go twice as far as most can. Dunno wot ’e’s talkin’ about.’
And indeed she didn’t know, for she shared Mr. Pinner’s opinion that
five hundred a year was wealth.
‘Fair beats me,’ she added, after a thoughtful pause.
Well, thought Charles, the Moulsford family had behaved badly, and,
under the cloak of sympathy and wishing to help, his and Laura’s conduct
had been most base; but they were certainly going to make up for it now.
By God, yes. Crippenham, which he had at first thought of from sheer
selfishness as the very place to get Sally to himself in, was evidently now
the place of all others from which she could be helped. Quite close to
Cambridge, within easy reach of young Luke, and in it, all-powerful even
now in spite of his age, certainly all-powerful when it came to putting the
fear of God into an undergraduate, or whatever he was, his ancient but still
inflammable father. Naturally at ninety-three the old man consisted
principally of embers; but these embers could still be fanned into a partial
glow by the sight of a good horse or a beautiful woman, and Charles would
only need to show Sally to him to have the old man on her side. Not able to
hear, but able to see: what combination could, in the case of Sally, possibly
be more admirable?
He drove on after lunch, his conscience clear; so clear that before
leaving Thaxted he sent Laura a telegram telling her they were going to
Crippenham, because he no longer wanted her to be made anxious,—for
those only, thought Charles, are angry and wish to make others
uncomfortable who are themselves in the wrong. He was no longer in the
wrong; or, rather, he was no longer thinking with rapture of the wrong he
would like to be in if Sally could be in it with him. Her speech made a gulf
between them which his fastidious soul couldn’t cross. There had to be h’s
before Charles could love with passion. Where there were none, passion
with him collapsed and died. On this occasion it died at the inn at Thaxted
towards the end of lunch; and he was grateful, really, however unpleasant at
the moment its dying was. For what mightn’t have happened if she had
gone on being silent and only saying yes and no, and smiling the divine,
delicious smile that didn’t only play in her dimples but laughed and danced
in her darling eyes? Charles was afraid that in that case he would have been
done for. Talking, she had saved him; and though he still loved her, for no
man could look at Sally and not love her, he loved her differently,—kindly,
gently, with a growingly motherly concern for her welfare. After Thaxted
there was no further trace in his looks and manner of that which had made
Sally suspect him of a wish to be a husband.
But she was surprised when he asked her, as they drove along, whether
she would mind if he took her to his father in the country for the night,
instead of back to what he called noisy London. Laura was in London; why
should she be taken somewhere else, away from her? And to his father too
—to more picks, fresh ones; just as she was beginning to shake down nicely
with the ones she knew. Surely the father of the picks would be the most
frightening of all?
So she said, ‘Pardon?’ and looked so much alarmed that Charles,
smiling, explained that his father was staying at that moment quite near
Cambridge, and it would be convenient for the search for rooms she had
told him Laura had promised to undertake with her next day.
‘He’s quite harmless,’ Charles assured her, for she continued to look
alarmed—if where she was to be taken to next was near Cambridge, it must
also be near Woodles, and suppose her father were to happen to see her?
—‘and he’s all alone there till Laura goes back to him tomorrow. It will
cheer him up to have us. He’s ninety-three.’
Ninety-three? ‘Oh, my,’ said Sally politely. ‘ ’E ain’t ’alf old. Poor old
gentleman,’ she added with compassion, old people having been objects of
special regard and attention in the Pinner circle.
But for the rest of the drive she was silent, for she was trying to thread
her way among her indistinct and entangled thoughts, all of which seemed
confusedly to press upon her notice that she oughtn’t to be where she was at
all, that if she was anywhere it ought to be with her husband, and that with
every hour that passed she was sinking deeper and deeper in wrong-doing.
‘Soon be in right up to the neck,’ she said to herself with resigned
unhappiness; and sincerely wished it were that time tomorrow, and she
safely joined up with Mr. Luke, and finished for good and all with these
soft-spoken but headstrong picks.
XIII
§
While they, along the roads, were drawing every minute nearer, the
unconscious Duke was sitting in his plain study, having his plain tea, which
had been set beside him by his plain parlourmaid. This is not to say that the
parlourmaid was ill-favoured, but only that she wasn’t a footman.
There were no footmen at Crippenham. There was hardly anything there,
except the Duke. For years it had been his conviction that this annual
fortnight of the rest that is obtained by complete contrast prolonged his life.
Something evidently prolonged it, and the Duke was sure it was
Crippenham. There he went every Easter alone with Laura, because it was a
small house, and an ugly house, and a solitary house, and had nothing to
recommend it except that it was the exact opposite of every other
Moulsford possession.
Only Charles could come and go as he pleased; only he could dare break
in without notice on the sacred yearly business of prolonging life. Although
he had had ninety-three years of it, the Duke still wanted more. He liked
being alive, and it pleased him to keep Streatley waiting. Streatley, and the
other three children of his first marriage—absurd, he thought, to have to
refer to those four old things as children—were unpopular with their father.
He had never at any time cared much for them, and had begun to be really
angry with them when he was a lively seventy, and perceived that the
possession of children bordering on a heavy fifty made him seem less
young than he felt himself to be. Now that they were practically seventy
themselves, and old seventies too, and he not looking a day different, he
hoped, from what he had looked thirty years before, he was angrier with
them than ever. He admitted that other people might be old at ninety-three,
but he wasn’t; he was the exception. He didn’t feel old, and he didn’t, he
considered, look old, so what was all this talk of age? The press never
mentioned him without the prefix venerable; people pretended he was deaf,
when he could hear as well as any man if he wasn’t mumbled at; Laura was
continually making him sit out of draughts, just as if he were a damned
invalid; arms were offered him if he wanted to walk a few steps—he
couldn’t appear in the House without some officious member of it, usually
that ass Chepstow, who was eighty if a day himself, ambling across to help;
and every time he had a birthday the newspapers tumbled over each other
with their offensively astonished congratulations. Couldn’t a man be over
ninety without having it perpetually rubbed into him that he was old?
What he loved was his brood of young ones—Laura, Terry, and Charles;
and of this lively trio the dearest to him was Charles. So that, looking up
from his seedcake and seeing his last born coming into the room, not only
entirely unexpectedly but with a young woman, though he was surprised he
wasn’t angry; and when on their coming close to him he perceived the
exceeding fairness of the young woman, his surprise became pleasurable;
very pleasurable; in fact, pleasurable to excess.
He stared up at Sally a moment, not listening to what Charles was
saying, and then struggled to get on to his feet. Younger than his three
young ones ... much, much younger than his three young ones ... youth, ah,
youth ... lovely, lovely youth....
Charles wanted to help him, but was thrust aside. ‘Poor old gentleman,’
said Sally, catching him by the arm as he seemed about to lose his balance
and drop back into the chair.
‘Married?’ asked the Duke, breathing hard after his exertion, and
looking at Charles.
Charles shook his head.
‘ ’Course I’m married,’ said Sally with heat.
‘He means us,’ said Charles.
‘Us?’ repeated Sally, much shocked.
‘You’re going to be, then,’ said the Duke, looking first at her and then at
Charles, his face red with pleasure.
Charles shook his head again, and laughed.
But the Duke didn’t laugh. He stared at him a minute, and then said,
‘Fool.’
‘I got a nusband,’ said Sally indignantly.
‘He can’t hear,’ said Charles. ‘He’s very deaf.’
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke. ‘Speak clearly, my dear—no,
don’t shout,’ he added; though Sally, far from going to shout, wasn’t even
opening her mouth. Poor old gentleman, she thought, gazing at him in silent
compassion; fancy him still being anybody’s father.
The Duke took her hand in a dry, cold grip.
‘Like shakin’ ’ands with a tombstone,’ thought Sally. And she was filled
with so great a pity for anything so old that she didn’t feel shy of him at all,
and in the coaxing voice of one who is addressing a baby she said, ‘ ’Ave
yer tea while it’s ’ot—do, now.’
Charles looked at her astonished. Nearly everybody was afraid of his
father. She reminded him of the weaned child in Isaiah, who put its hand
fearlessly on the cockatrice’s den.
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke, gazing at her with delight.
‘This is Mrs. Luke, Father—a friend of Laura’s,’ shouted Charles, ‘and
I’ve brought her——’
‘Write it down, my dear,’ said the Duke, not heeding Charles, and
drawing Sally into a chair next his own and pushing paper and a pencil
towards her with his shaking old hands. ‘Write down what you were saying
to me.’
Charles became anxious. He felt sure Sally couldn’t write anything
down. Nor could she; for if her spoken words were imperfect her written
ones were worse, so that to be given a pencil and paper by the Duke and
told to write might have been embarrassing if she hadn’t, owing to his
extreme age and evident dilapidation, felt he wasn’t, as she said to herself,
all there. Poor old gentleman, she thought, full of pity. What she saw, sitting
heavily in the chair, breathing hard and blinking at her so kindly, was just,
thought Sally, the remains, the left-overs; like, she said to herself, her
images being necessarily domestic, Sunday’s dinner by the time one got to
Friday,—not much good, that is, but had to be put up with. No; there was
nothing frightening about him, poor old gentleman. More like a baby than
anything else.
‘ ’Ave yer tea while it’s ’ot,’ she said again, gently putting the paper and
pencil aside. ‘Do you good,’ she encouraged, ‘a nice ’ot cup of tea will.’
‘He can’t hear, you know,’ said Charles, much relieved by Sally’s
attitude. But with what confidence, he thought, couldn’t a thing so gracious
approach the most churlish, disgruntled of human beings; and his father
wasn’t either churlish or disgruntled,—he only looked as if he were, and
frightened people, and when he saw they were frightened he didn’t like
them, and frightened them more than ever.
The Duke, watching Sally’s every movement with rapt attention, thought
when she put her hand on the teapot to feel if it was still hot that she wanted
tea herself, and bade Charles ring the bell and order more to be brought, and
meanwhile he took the cup she offered him obediently, his eyes on her face.
He hadn’t got as far, being still in too great a condition of amazement at her
beauty, as wondering which of the ancient families of England had
produced this young shoot of perfection, and not being able to hear a word
she said took it for granted that the delicate-ankled—he was of the
practically extinct generation that looks first at a woman’s ankles,—slender-
fingered creature belonged to his own kind. True her hands were red hands;
surprisingly red, he thought, on her presently taking off her gloves, which
she rolled up together into a neat tight ball, compared to the flawless
fairness of her face; but they were the authentic shape of good-breeding,
even if her nails——
The Duke was really surprised when his eyes reached Sally’s nails.
Charles drew a chair close up to his father, and began his explanations.
He was determined the old man should attend, and shouted well into his ear
as he told him that he had motored Laura’s friend, Mrs. Luke, down from
London, where she had been staying with Laura at Goring House, to
Crippenham for the night because it was quieter, and she hadn’t been well
——
‘I’m all right,’ interrupted Sally, who had been listening in an attitude of
polite attention.
‘Oh, my dear child—when you fainted,’ protested Charles in his
ordinary voice, raising a deprecating hand.
‘Speak up,’ said the Duke, impatiently.
‘ ’Course I fainted,’ said Sally, looking pleased.
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke.
‘Yes—and were unconscious for at least half an hour,’ said Charles.
‘That’s right. And sick,’ said Sally, looking proud.
‘Sick? Were you sick as well? Then see how really ill——’
‘Speak up, speak up,’ said the Duke testily.
But Sally said nothing further, and merely smiled indulgently at Charles.
‘What did she say?’ asked the Duke, not wishing to lose a word that fell
from that enchanting mouth.
‘She said,’ shouted Charles, ‘that she is quite well now.’
‘Of course she is,’ said the Duke, staring at her face and forgetting her
nails. ‘Anyone can see she is as perfectly well as she is perfectly beautiful.’
‘Oh lor,’ thought Sally, ‘now ’e’s goin’ to begin.’
§
That afternoon and evening were a triumph for her if she had known it,
but all she knew was that she was counting the hours to next day, and
Jocelyn, and the settling down at last to her home and her duties. The old
man was her slave. Crippenham and everything in it was laid at her feet,
and the Duke only lamented that it should be to this one of his houses that
she had come, where he couldn’t, he was afraid, make her even decently
comfortable. Positively at Crippenham there was only one bathroom. The
Duke seemed to regard this as a calamity, and Sally listened with mild
wonder to the amount he had to say about it.
‘Fair ’arps on it, don’t ’e, poor old gentleman,’ she remarked to Charles;
and bending over to the Duke’s ear—Charles looked on in astonishment at
the fearless familiarity of the gesture—she tried to convey to him that it
wasn’t Saturday night till the next night, and that by then she’d be in
Cambridge, so there was no need for him to take on.
‘Eh?’ said the Duke. ‘What does she say?’ he asked Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, ‘that it doesn’t matter.’
How very glad he was that his father was so deaf. Often he had found his
deafness trying, but how glad he was of it now. Not Saturday night....
Charles fell silent. It was then Friday. Could it be that since the previous
Saturday——?
The Duke, however, knew nothing of Sally except what his eyes told
him, and accordingly he was her slave. When she presently went up to
Laura’s room with the housekeeper, who had instructions to place
everything of Lady Laura’s at Mrs. Luke’s disposal—Crippenham had no
spare rooms, only a room each for the Duke, and Charles, and Laura, the
other six or seven bedrooms being left unfurnished and kept locked up—
and Charles, who from long practice could make his father hear better than
anyone except Laura, settled down to telling him as much about Sally as he
thought prudent, the old man listened eagerly, his hand behind his ear,
drinking in every word and asking questions which showed that if he was
really interested in a subject he still could be most shrewd.
He was delighted that Sally should have run away from her mother-in-
law, said it was proof of a fine, thoroughbred spirit, and asked who her
father was.
Charles said his name was Pinner.
The Duke then inquired whether he were one of the Worcestershire
Pinners, and Charles said he didn’t know.
The Duke then rambled off among his capacious memories, and
presently brought back a Pinner who had been at Christchurch with him,
and who had married, he said, one of the Dartmoors, an extremely
handsome woman, fair too, who was probably the girl’s grandmother.
Charles merely bowed his head.
The Duke then asked who the Lukes, apart from this boy-husband at
Ananias, were; for, he said, except the fellow in the Bible, he couldn’t
recollect ever having heard of a Luke before.
Charles said all he knew was that they lived at South Winch.
‘What?’ cried the Duke. ‘Has she married beneath her?’—and was so
really upset that for a time he blinked at Charles in silence. Because he felt
that if only this dear son of his had secured the beautiful young creature he
could have died content; and it seemed to him a double catastrophe that not
only should his boy have missed her, but that she should have been caught
into a misalliance with some obscure family in a suburb.
‘Upon my word, Charles,’ he said, after a dismayed silence, ‘that’s a
pity. A very great pity.’
And rambling off into his memories again, he said it was a good thing
that poor Jack Pinner was dead, for no man had a keener family feeling than
he, and it would have broken his heart to think his grand-daughter had made
a mistake of that kind.
He couldn’t get over it. He had never, in the whole of his long life, seen
anyone to touch this girl for beauty, and that she should, at the very outset
of what ought to have been a career of unparalleled splendour and success,
have dropped out of her proper sphere and become entangled in a suburb
really shocked him. Kings at her feet, all Europe echoing with her name—
this seemed to the Duke such beauty’s proper accompaniment.
‘Tut, tut,’ he said, his hands, clasped on the top of his stick, shaking
more than usual, ‘tut, tut, tut. What was her mother thinking of?’
‘Her mother is dead,’ said Charles.
‘Her father, then. Jack Pinner was no fool. I don’t understand how his
son—where is he, by the way? I heard something about the Worcestershire
estates having been sold after the war——’
Charles said he didn’t know where her father was, because, although
Sally had told him the shop was at Woodles, he had never heard of
Woodles, which indeed is not marked on any map, so that he felt he wasn’t
lying in saying he didn’t know.
The Duke, however, appeared to be seized by a sudden fierce desire to
track down his old friend’s reprehensible son and tell him what he thought
of him, and Charles was dismayed, for no good, he was sure, could come of
tracking down Mr. Pinner. Sally, he knew, was anxious her father shouldn’t
find out her disobedience to his orders, and though of this disobedience
Charles held Laura guilty, not Sally, yet he didn’t suppose Mr. Pinner would
look at it like that, and it was, besides, important, Charles considered, that
his father, who had always had a rooted objection to any woman who
wasn’t well-bred, should go on thinking Sally was a Worcestershire Pinner.
It seemed, then, to Charles a good thing to keep his father and Mr. Pinner
apart, and it was therefore with regret that he listened to the old man asking
Sally the moment he next saw her, which wasn’t till dinner, for she stayed
up in her room till fetched down by the scandalised housekeeper, to whom
it was a new experience that His Grace should be kept waiting even a
minute after the gong had sounded, where her father was.
‘ ’Im?’ said Sally, turning pale but forced by nature and her upbringing
to an obedient truthfulness. ‘ ’E’s at Woodles, ’e is.’ And, ‘Oh my
gracious,’ she added to herself, ‘they ain’t goin’ to tell ’im I’m ’ere?’
‘What does she say?’ the Duke asked Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, following his father, who was shuffling
along leaning on Sally’s arm, to the dining-room, and shouting with
outward composure but inward regret, ‘that he is at Woodles.’
‘Woodles? Woodles?’ repeated the Duke. ‘Never heard of it. Is it in
Worcestershire?’
Sally shook her head. She didn’t know where Worcestershire was, but
she felt pretty sure Woodles wasn’t in it.
‘I dunno wot it’s in,’ she said. And then, impelled as always to the naked
truth, she added, ‘Close by ’ere, any’ow.’
‘What does she say?’ inquired the Duke, turning again to Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, obliged to hand on the answer correctly
with Sally listening, but doing so with increased regret, ‘that it isn’t far
from here.’
‘How very lucky,’ said the Duke, ‘and how very odd that I shouldn’t
have known he was so near.’ And he added, when he had been lowered into
his chair at the head of the table by the parlourmaid, who held one arm, and
his servant, who held the other, ‘I’d like to have a talk with that father of
yours, my dear.’
Sally turned paler.
‘Your grandfather was one of my oldest friends,’ continued the Duke,
with difficulty unfolding his table-napkin because of how much his hands
shook.
‘I ain’t got no grandfather,’ said Sally anxiously, who had never heard of
him till that moment.
‘She says,’ began Charles reluctantly—‘You know,’ he muttered quickly
to Sally, for how could he tell the old man what she had said? ‘you have a
grandfather—or had. You must have. Everybody has them.’
‘What? What?’ said the Duke impatiently. ‘Send a message round
tonight, Charles, and say with my compliments that I’d very much like to
see Pinner. Tell him I’m too old to go to him, so perhaps he’ll be obliging
enough to come to me some time tomorrow. You can say his father was at
Oxford with me if you like, and that I’ve only just heard he is in the
neighbourhood. Say his daughter——’
‘Now don’t—now don’t go doin’ a thing like that,’ Sally faintly begged
of Charles.

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CHAPTER 1 Earth and Its Atmosphere 3

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