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Most of us have heard the dire predictions about global warming. Some experts insist that warming has already started, and they warn of such impending disasters as the sea level rising to flood coastal cities. Others, however, have issued loud counterclaims, assuring us that global warming is a myth based on misleading data. How can we tell who is right, and how we should respond? And why is there no scientific consensus on a matter of such vital importance? George Philander addresses these questions in this book, as he guides the nonscientific reader through new ideas about the remarkable and intricate factors that determine the world's climate.


In simple, nontechnical language, Philander describes how the interplay between familiar yet endlessly fascinating phenomena--winds and clouds, light and air, land and sea--maintains climates that permit a glorious diversity of fauna and flora to flourish on Earth. That interplay also creates such potent weather disrupters as El Niño and La Niña, translates modest fluctuations in sunlight into global climate changes as dramatic as the Ice Age, and determines the Earth's response to the gases we are discharging into the atmosphere, such as those that led to the ozone hole over Antarctica and those that are likely to cause global warming. In his discussion of these matters, Philander emphasizes that our planet is so complex that the scientific results will always have uncertainties. To continue to defer action on environmental problems, on the grounds that more accurate scientific results will soon be available, could lead to a crisis. To make wise decisions, it will help if the public is familiar with the geosciences, which explore the processes that make ours a habitable planet.


The book is an excellent introduction to the basics of the Earth's climate and weather, and will be an important contribution to the debate about climate change and the relationship between scientific knowledge and public affairs.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Preface
• 1 Between the Idea and the Reality(p. 3)
• 2 Is Our Planet Fragile or Robust?(p. 11)
• 3 Light and Air(p. 31)
• 4 Why the Peak of a Mountain Is Cold(p. 55)
• 5 Capricious Clouds(p. 76)
• 6 The Climate Tapestry(p. 89)
• 7 Weather, the Music of Our Sphere(p. 106)
• 8 The Ocean in Motion(p. 125)
• 9 El Nino, La Nina, and the Southern Oscillation(p. 143)
• 10 The Paradox of the Faint Sun but Warm Earth(p. 161)
• 11 Why Summer Is Warmer than Winter: The Cycles of Seasons and of Ice Ages(p. 170)
• 12 The Ozone Hole, a Cautionary Tale(p. 183)
• 13 Global Warming, Risky Business(p. 191)
• App. A 1.1 Exponential Growth and Decay(p. 209)
• App. A 1.2 Establishing a Chronology(p. 210)
• App. A 2.1 Gaia(p. 214)
• App. A 2.2 Chaos(p. 215)
• App. A 3.1 Earthshine(p. 217)
• App. A 3.2 The Scattering of Light(p. 217)
• App. A 3.3 Blackbody Radiation(p. 218)
• App. A 3.4 Effective Temperatures of the Planets(p. 219)
• App. A 3.5 The Greenhouse Effect(p. 221)
• App. A 4.1 The Scale Height of the Atmosphere(p. 226)
• App. A 4.2 The Adiabatic Lapse Rate(p. 228)
• App. A 5.1 Measuring Moisture in the Atmosphere(p. 231)
• App. A 5.2 Earth's Energy Budget(p. 232)
• App. A 5.3 How Many of Your Molecules Have Been to the Moon?(p. 233)
• App. A 6.1 Conservation of Angular Momentum(p. 234)
• App. A 6.2 The Coriolis Force(p. 235)
• App. A 6.3 Shape of Earth(p. 237)
• App. A 6.4 Gradient Winds(p. 237)
• App. A 7.1 Predicting the Weather(p. 240)
• App. A 8.1 The Seasonal Thermocline(p. 242)
• App. A 8.2 The Perpetual Salt Fountain(p. 242)
• App. 9 El Nino, La Nina, and the Southern Oscillation(p. 244)
• App. A 10.1 Weathering(p. 246)
• App. A 10.2 Properties of the Planets(p. 247)
• App. 11 Earth's Sensitivity to Perturbations(p. 248)
• App. 12 The Ozone Layer(p. 249)
• App. 13 Global Warming(p. 250)
• Glossary(p. 251)
• References(p. 257)
• Index(p. 259)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

With appropriate allegories, all phenomena can be explained in an interesting and informative manner. Philander expertly entices readers into complex scientific thought by utilizing familiar settings to engage, entertain, and educate. The scientific and political questions related to global warming are illustrated as the book opens aboard a raft accelerating toward a waterfall. The position of the raft can be argued as a political question even though a map shows the certainty of disaster ahead. Successive chapters draw on historical, philosophical, and mythological aspects of global climate variability and control. The scientific core of this book is comprehensive but restrained. All of the important processes, such as Hadley circulation, weather fronts, computer models, and even the April Fool's Day snow storm of 1997, are included. A relatively modest effort to use the second law of thermodynamics would have been better left out, since thermodynamics cannot predict how long the sun will keep shining. For the mathematically inclined, the equations and technical details are in the appendixes. All levels. R. M. Ferguson; Eastern Connecticut State University

Booklist Review

Philander's book emerges from the welter of tomes on global warming, both alarmist and complacent, as a welcome beacon to storm-tossed readers. This work is an outgrowth of Philander's introductory college course in climatology. The text fluidly outlines the long-term parameters of Earth's climate, distinguishing them from the shorter term events defined as the weather. Over the long haul, Philander is not too worried about Earth's habitability. Its self-regulating mechanisms have adjusted to bigger perturbations, such as a 30 percent increase in the solar flux, than the industrial age near-doubling of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Nevertheless, he is equally sure that in the short term, such dumping will alter the climate because the carbon dioxide cycle works too slowly to cope. Stressing constantly the complexity of climate, Philander informatively outlines the main processes that govern it, such as the global circulation of deep ocean water or the wobble of Earth's axis. Overall, a clear, opinion-free lecture on a topic everybody loves to talk about--without genuinely knowing much. --Gilbert Taylor

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

S. George Philander is Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the author of El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation .