On Order
Summary
Summary
At a time of so much politicized debate over the phenomenon of global warming, the second edition of The Future of the World's Climate places the discussion in a broader geological, paleo-climatic, and astronomical context. This book is a resource based on reviews of current climate science and supported by sound, accurate data and projections made possible by technological advances in climate modeling.
Crucially, this title examines in detail a wide variety of aspects, including human factors like land use, expanding urban climates, and governmental efforts at mitigation, such as the Kyoto Protocol. It also examines large-scale, long-term changes in oceans, glaciers, and atmospheric composition, including tropospheric ozone and aerosols. Weather extremes are addressed, as well as the impact of catastrophic events such as massive volcanism and meteorite impacts.
Readers will find a complete picture of the Earth's future climate, delivered by authors drawn from all over the world and from the highest regarded peer-reviewed groups; most are also contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Assessment Reports.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This new edition (1st ed., Future Climates of the World, 1995) has been extensively revised and updated with 95 percent new content. It has the appearance and feel of a text for a full-year course in climate change but is not described as a textbook. The compendium of articles, written by climate science experts, covers all aspects of the subject; the writings clearly illustrate that future global warming and associated climate changes have become a very extensive discipline. As the preface states, the detailed modeling of climatic factors presupposes a detailed understanding of the subject. It would be senseless to refute the massive changes anticipated over the rest of the century with this volume in hand. The climate forcing caused by anthropogenic activity will raise atmospheric temperature and increase violent weather events substantially more than solar and other natural causes would, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has claimed for years. Temperature and sea-level rises due to excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, along with changes in solar activity, are becoming easier to predict because of the research so fully described here. Useful for science or politics collections. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. A. R. Upgren emeritus, Wesleyan University
Table of Contents
| Dedication Foreword Preface Abbreviations & Acronyms In Memoriam |
| 1 Climates of the Future |
| Section I The Anthropocene |
| 2 People, Policy and Politics in Future Climates |
| 3 Urban Climates |
| 4 Human Effects on Climate through Land Surface Modification |
| Section II Time and Tide |
| 5 Fast and Slow Feedbacks in Future Climates |
| 6 Ocean Climates In The Future |
| 7 Climatic Variability on Decadal to Century Time-Scales |
| 8 The Future of the World's Glaciers |
| 9 Future Regional Climates |
| Section III Looking Forward |
| 10 Climate and weather extremes: observations, modelling and projections |
| 11 Interaction Between Future Climate and Terrestrial Carbon and Nitrogen |
| 12 Climate-chemistry interaction: Tropospheric ozone and sulfate aerosols |
| 13 Climatic Effects of Changing Atmospheric Aerosol Levels |
| Section IV Learning Lessons |
| 14 Records from the Past, Lessons for the Future: what the palaeo-record implies about mechanisms of global change |
| 15 Modeling the Past and Future Interglacials in Response to The Astronomical and Greenhouse Gas Forcing |
| 16 Catastrophe: Extraterrestrial Impacts, Massive Volcanism and the Biosphere |
| Section V Understanding the Unknowns |
| 17 Expect the Unexpected: Future Climate Surprises |
| 18 Earth's Climate from Geophysiology to Earth System Science Bibliography: Collected References Index Brief Biographies of Authors |
