Book Review: Climatology by D S Lal

The Climatology is one of the most important segment in studying Geography. The D S lal’s Climatology book is a book popular among geography optional students.

In General: The book is written in lucid style. The images, description is able to generate interest in the subject.

The geography is a subject where imagination generated in our mind can simplify the process of learning. D S Lal is able to do exactly that in many of the chapters.

Pros

Atmospheric equilibrium: Stability and Instability is an area which many geography authors mess up. The understanding of the concept requires thorough understanding about certain physics laws. The author has written these areas with lot of illustration and patience. He has begun from the basics and slowly built up the concepts.

“Air masses” is another chapter where he has written brilliantly. He has written elaborately on the way air masses change their nature with time and place. The “ Frontogenesis and Frontolysis “ chapter is also really good. The illustrations are simple and easy to replicate in exams.

Another area which D S Lal has shown written well is regarding Applied Climatology and Global warming. He has delved into all the details needed for an ias aspirant in these chapters. The imaginary continent diagram is something that has been repeatedly used by D S Lal. We can use this diagram in other areas of geography too.

Cons

An area which disappoints the reader in most Geography textbooks is “Climatic Classification”. Here I cannot say he could do full justice to the area. May be the classification is too complicated subject or may be it’s due to lack of space. The Koppen’s classification has been dealt well in most books including this one.  

Readers would have loved the book more if more illustrations could be brought in chapters like “Climate types and their distribution”. The geo cheong leong book is good in this area.

The illustrations in chapter “Air pressure and winds” too seems bit complicated for beginners. I would prefer illustrations of Savindra Singh over D S Lal for this chapter.

Summary

The D S Lal’s Climatology is a well written book. The chapters will stay in mind if we read it slowly giving importance to the concepts. A basic knowledge of terms like “change of state”, “evaporation” etc are needed for following this book. It’s desirable to have other references for chapters listed in the ‘cons’ segment. Overall it’s a good book recommended for geo optionals. 

*The book is reviewed thinking of ias aspirants as its readers. The review may not be applicable to readers whose purpose may be different (eg: studying for degree). Most books undergo change in content and presentation style every year, which may not be covered in this review.