Heaven and Earth Global Warming, the Missing Science

by Plimer, Ian

• ISBN13: 9781589794726
• ISBN10: 1589794729
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-16
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing

Summary

Climate, Sea Level, And Ice Sheets Have Always Changed, and the changes observed today are less than those of the past. Climate changes are cyclical and are driven by Earth's position in the galaxy, the Sun, wobbles in Earth's orbit, ocean currents, and plate tectonics. In previous times, atmospheric carbon dioxide was far higher than at present but did not drive climate change. No runaway greenhouse effect or acid oceans occurred during times of excessively high carbon dioxide. During past glaciations, carbon dioxide was higher than it is today. The non-scientific popular political view is that humans change climate. Do we have reason for concern about possible human-induced climate change?

Author Biography

Ian Plimer, twice winner of Australia's highest scientific honor, the Eureka Prize, is professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Adelaide and is author of six other books written for the general public in addition to more than 120 scientific papers.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 9
Climate	p. 10
Carbon dioxide and pollution	p. 12
The science of climate	p. 14
Why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?	p. 17
Climate change	p. 23
A retreat to the good old days	p. 27
Acknowledgements	p. 28
History	p. 30
Are the speed and amount of modern climate change unprecedented?
Is dangerous warming occurring?
Is the temperature range observed in the 20th Century outside the range of normal variability?
Our changing climates	p. 32
The last great warming	p. 35
The last big freeze	p. 37
The end of the freeze	p. 40
The Roman Warming (250 BC-450 AD)	p. 59
The Dark Ages (535-900 AD)	p. 61
The Medieval Warming (900-1300 AD)	p. 63
The Little Ice Age (1280-1850 AD)	p. 72
The Late 20th Century Warming (1850 AD to the present)	p. 86
The long tale of the lone pine	p. 87
The Sun	p. 100
Does the Sun influence the Earth's climate?
The bringer of life, heat and cold	p. 101
Dirt in the air	p. 102
Snowballs and spiral arms	p. 105
Galactic time travel	p. 106
Galactic bullets	p. 109
The engine of weather	p. 112
That big ball of heat in the sky	p. 115
Angry solar emissions	p. 116
Inner turbulence of the Sun	p. 119
Shock, horror. The solar constant is not constant	p. 121
Blemishes on her beauty	p. 125
Water, carbon dioxide, temperature and the Sun	p. 130
Ancient signals of solar activity	p. 133
The Sun and climate	p. 144
Earth	p. 148
Do volcanoes change climate?
Do wobbles in the Earth's orbit change climate?
Have past climate changes driven extinctions?
Life on Earth	p. 149
Single celled life	p. 149
What are the chances of multicellular life on Earth?	p. 160
The biggest climate change of all time	p. 165
The first multicellular life	p. 170
The explosion of life	p. 171
Extinction	p. 175
Minor and major mass extinctions of life	p. 175
Recent macrofauna extinction	p. 188
Modern climate change and extinction	p. 191
Global warming and infectious diseases	p. 199
Desertification	p. 203
One volcano can ruin your whole day	p. 207
Supervolcanoes	p. 211
Volcanic gases	p. 216
Ice, volcanoes and earthquakes	p. 225
Milankovitch wobble theory wobbles	p. 229
Ice	p. 236
Is global warming melting the polar ice caps and alpine valley glaciers?
Ice	p. 237
Ice ages	p. 239
Ice advance and retreat	p. 243
The Arctic	p. 257
The Antarctic	p. 267
Alpine valley glaciers	p. 281
Sea ice	p. 287
Water	p. 292
Do human emissions of carbon dioxide create a rise in the sea level?
Will the seas become acid?
Does sea level rise kill coral atolls?
Are humans forcing changes in ocean currents?
Weird water	p. 294
The great flood	p. 296
Sea level	p. 298
Coral atolls	p. 318
Dissolved carbon dioxide in seawater	p. 323
Acid oceans	p. 331
Sea surface temperature	p. 339
El Nino	p. 350
Water cycle	p. 360
The rock that made a fool out of humans	p. 362
Air	p. 364
Do thermometer measurements show the planet is warming?
Do other temperature measurements show the planet is warming?
Is atmospheric carbon dioxide increasing?
Is atmospheric carbon dioxide approaching a dangerous level?
Do higher sea temperatures cause more hurricanes?
Do clouds influence climate?
The greenhouse effect	p. 365
The measurement of temperature	p. 376
Measurement and order of accuracy	p. 376
Treatment of data	p. 382
Urban heat island effect	p. 384
Temperature proxies	p. 393
Hurricanes	p. 405
Carbon dioxide	p. 411
The global carbon cycle	p. 411
Measurement of CO2	p. 416
Methane and other greenhouse gases	p. 428
Clouds	p. 432
Et moi	p. 435
Ubi dubium ibi libertas	p. 435
The vernalisation of science	p. 441
Tip of the iceberg	p. 446
Scientific consensus	p. 449
The end is nigh	p. 456
Religion, environmentalism and romanticism	p. 462
The Kyoto Protocol	p. 471
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear	p. 472
What if I'm wrong?	p. 489
Index	p. 494
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