Chemical Education Today edited by
Book & Media Reviews
Jeffrey Kovac University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
Chemistry of Atmospheres: An Introduction to the Chemistry of the Atmospheres of Earth, the Planets, and their Satellites, 3rd Edition by Richard P. Wayne Oxford University Press: New York, 2000. 775 pp, 101 illustrations, ISBN 0-19-850375-X (paperback). $62.95 Reviewed by G. Barney Ellison
This is the third edition of a famous textbook about the chemistry of the atmosphere. Chemistry of Atmospheres emphasizes the fundamental principles that underlie the atmospheric processes here on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. Wayne is a well-known atmospheric chemist and he writes for chemists. Like biochemistry and molecular biology, atmospheric chemistry is a huge subject. I believe Chemistry of Atmospheres manages a useful overview of atmospheric chemistry in 800 pages. Other authors aim at exhaustive accounts (John H. Seinfeld and Spyros Pandis, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 1300 pages) or more selective, sparse descriptions (Daniel J. Jacob’s Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry, 250 pages). Wayne’s book strikes a nice balance. In addition to excellent chapters on homogeneous chemical kinetics and photochemistry, a careful account of atmospheric transport and heterogeneous chemistry is also presented. Chemistry of Atmospheres has a long chapter on
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stratospheric ozone that demonstrates the complex interplay of O3 chemistry, photophysics, and transport in the polar ozone holes. The 3rd edition has several expanded sections on tropospheric organic chemistry as well as air pollution and the effects of biomass burning. Wayne’s book has several unique chapters that are not found in any other beginning texts: Ions in the Atmosphere, The Airglow, and Extraterrestrial Atmospheres. Each chapter is annotated with a set of useful footnotes/comments. I believe that this monograph will be accessible to anyone with a solid undergraduate background in physical chemistry. Chemistry in the 21st century is becoming a huge enterprise. A little over a hundred years ago, Paul Ehrlich discovered that “All biological processes are chemical in nature.” By now the joining of biology and chemistry is well advanced. This same fusion is also underway elsewhere. For example, more and more efforts to understand the properties of (and to rationally design) materials or to understand and legislate the earth’s environment bring us to chemistry. All attempts at a microscopic, fundamental understanding of these hypercomplex systems lead to atoms and molecules. Chemistry becomes the fulcrum of everything. Few texts demonstrate this better that Richard Wayne’s Chemistry of Atmospheres; I strongly recommend it. G. Barney Ellison is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0215;
[email protected] Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 3 March 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
