Command Decisions

by Hanson W. Baldwin (Introduction), Claude Lorius, Dominique Raynaud

From the Arctic Ocean and ice sheets of Greenland, to the glaciers of the Andes and Himalayas, to the great frozen desert of Antarctica, "The White Planet" takes readers on a spellbinding scientific journey through the shrinking world of ice and snow to tell the story of the expeditions and discoveries that have transformed our understanding of global climate. Written by three internationally renowned scientists at the center of many breakthroughs in ice core and climate science, this book provides an unparalleled firsthand account of how the "white planet" affects global climate--and how, in turn, global warming is changing the frozen world.

Jean Jouzel, Claude Lorius, and Dominique Raynaud chronicle the daunting scientific, technical, and human hurdles that they and other scientists have had to overcome in order to unravel the mysteries of past and present climate change, as revealed by the cryosphere--the dynamic frozen regions of our planet. Scientifically impeccable, up-to-date, and accessible, "The White Planet" brings cutting-edge climate research to general readers through a vivid narrative. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the inextricable link between climate and our planet's icy regions.

Genres: Science, Nature, Nonfiction

481 pages, Hardcover

First published May 22, 2008

About the author

Hanson Weightman Baldwin was the longtime Military Analyst of the New York Times. His coverage of the early days of the Second World War earned him a Pulitzer Prize. During his long career, he wrote and/or edited many books, primarily in the field of politico-military history.

Reviews

[Bilal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great content. But the writing was quite straightforward. Still a great read and scary for what's to come the next century.

[Yeah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be writing two reviews. One is for this website (goodreads.com) and one is for the book. The book is average. It's not very enjoyable to read even though it could be. It's quite dry and doesn't supply much in the way of reasoning. Just overloading of evidence and statistics, but not even so much of the latter. Funny drawings show up here and there. It feels as if somebody wrote notes in the form of a book. There's a slight bit of extra attention given to the French but having learnt UK-biased geography it was not too much to bear.

The website is rather terrible. It fulfills its implicitly stated aim, but fails in usability. The UI is clunky. The GUI came from 2005. You cannot multi-edit books on shelves. Books with ratings are not auto-marked as read, nor is there a setting to turn it on. Fundamentals exist, like a timeline and shelves but all the navigation is convoluted. Adding a book on the app vis-a-vis the website is frustratingly inconsistent. Whether stuff like date you finished the book is automatically filled is contingent on the platform you used. This site should take a page or two from tumblr. (I'm not a tumblr fan just that technically speaking, tumblr is an example of a site that does not have such issues)

[Lance · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not exactly a bad book but too obviously written for a French audience. Also, very technical. Not sure what I wanted but I wasn't looking for this much detail.