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Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach
Providing a concise, up-to-date presentation of current knowledge of climate change and its implications for society as a whole, this new edition has been thoroughly updated and extended to include the latest information. The text describes the components of the global climate, considers how the many elements of climate combine to define its behaviour, and reviews how climate change is measured. The author discusses how the causes of climate change can be related to the evidence of change, and modelled to predict future changes. This book is ideally suited for introductory courses in meteorology, oceanography, environmental science, earth science, geography, agriculture and social science. It contains review questions at the end of each chapter to enable readers to monitor their understanding of the materials covered. This book should appeal to an audience with a keen interest in all aspects of the climate change debate.
- GenresNonfiction
392 pages, Paperback
First published May 2, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 29, 2016
Climate change, as everyone probably knows, is a continually polarized issue. Burroughs presents the science behind the madness. This book does not present both "sides" of the debate, nor does it seek to. Instead Burroughs provides short but substantial explanations on how data is collected and interpreted, and how scientists then create predictive models. He also provides some solutions, but also warnings, on potential solutions.
As the book constantly notes, climate science is a science based on imperfect data. Sorting through thousands if not millions of variables, each changing once the data is recorded, creates a monumental task for scientists. Problems arise even when using past data sets: the further back ice and geological records go, the more gaps there are, and the more uncertain scientists become. Natural influences such as atmospheric circulation patterns, solar variability, hydrolic cycle, volcanic eruptions, and orbital variations are just the few mentioned in this book, which obfuscates any conclusions derived about the climate.
It is clear, however, humans do contribute to climate changes, at least on the local level. It is also indisputable that CO2 is a greenhouse gas--that alone, when CO2 increase temperatures also increase. But it is unclear how to separate natural events and human influences when discussing climate change. CO2 is also released from ocean cycles, volcanoes and other natural sources. Humans have since the Industrial Revolution begun burning fossil fuels, but at the same time, humans have also blown particulates and dust into the atmosphere, obscuring sunlight and therefore contributing to cooling. Moreover, as Burroughs cites, a study showed agricultural areas with a substantial amount of crops in the US and Europe have on average 2 degree Celsius lower average temperatures, compared to the region. Thus it is, again, unclear whether humans, on net, have increased or decreased global temperatures.
To those who claim climate science/change is a settled science, one only needs to ask a climate scientist to understand how murky our understanding of our climate truly is. Would a "settled science" continually predict incorrectly the change in temperatures, and furthermore, overestimate the change in every single model? Climate alarmists have predicted the destruction of the Earth since the 1980s, and yet nearly four decades later, their claims and revised claims have not come to fruition. Of course, this is not to say we should not be worried about the climate and end our pursuit towards cleaner, greener energy, but we must be wary of hasty action and legislation; the duration and magnitude of climate change means everything.
As the book constantly notes, climate science is a science based on imperfect data. Sorting through thousands if not millions of variables, each changing once the data is recorded, creates a monumental task for scientists. Problems arise even when using past data sets: the further back ice and geological records go, the more gaps there are, and the more uncertain scientists become. Natural influences such as atmospheric circulation patterns, solar variability, hydrolic cycle, volcanic eruptions, and orbital variations are just the few mentioned in this book, which obfuscates any conclusions derived about the climate.
It is clear, however, humans do contribute to climate changes, at least on the local level. It is also indisputable that CO2 is a greenhouse gas--that alone, when CO2 increase temperatures also increase. But it is unclear how to separate natural events and human influences when discussing climate change. CO2 is also released from ocean cycles, volcanoes and other natural sources. Humans have since the Industrial Revolution begun burning fossil fuels, but at the same time, humans have also blown particulates and dust into the atmosphere, obscuring sunlight and therefore contributing to cooling. Moreover, as Burroughs cites, a study showed agricultural areas with a substantial amount of crops in the US and Europe have on average 2 degree Celsius lower average temperatures, compared to the region. Thus it is, again, unclear whether humans, on net, have increased or decreased global temperatures.
To those who claim climate science/change is a settled science, one only needs to ask a climate scientist to understand how murky our understanding of our climate truly is. Would a "settled science" continually predict incorrectly the change in temperatures, and furthermore, overestimate the change in every single model? Climate alarmists have predicted the destruction of the Earth since the 1980s, and yet nearly four decades later, their claims and revised claims have not come to fruition. Of course, this is not to say we should not be worried about the climate and end our pursuit towards cleaner, greener energy, but we must be wary of hasty action and legislation; the duration and magnitude of climate change means everything.
January 14, 2019
Balanced presentation
This book describes historical climate variations and changes and does a great job of showing the complexities involved in determining whether the climate is changing, what things affect changes and to some degree what is likely to happen going forward. It is truly a complex issue without a lot of clarity about what should be done. This book focuses more on science than politics and economics. That was refreshing. Solutions will need to be engineered rather than created by emotion and bias driven fields of politics and economics. I think I'm more confident that technology will solve the problem than most, I'm also pretty confident that politicians and economists will use the situation to get what they want. Power and money
My second time through this book and I still like it. Each time I picked up something else
This book describes historical climate variations and changes and does a great job of showing the complexities involved in determining whether the climate is changing, what things affect changes and to some degree what is likely to happen going forward. It is truly a complex issue without a lot of clarity about what should be done. This book focuses more on science than politics and economics. That was refreshing. Solutions will need to be engineered rather than created by emotion and bias driven fields of politics and economics. I think I'm more confident that technology will solve the problem than most, I'm also pretty confident that politicians and economists will use the situation to get what they want. Power and money
My second time through this book and I still like it. Each time I picked up something else
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November 21, 2009None
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews