Experimenting on a Small Planet: A Scholarly Entertainment

Forside
Springer Science & Business Media, 13. des. 2012 - 963 sider
This book is a thorough introduction to climate science and global change. The author is a geologist who has spent much of his life investigating the climate of Earth from a time when it was warm and dinosaurs roamed the land, to today's changing climate. Bill Hay takes you on a journey to understand how the climate system works. He explores how humans are unintentionally conducting a grand uncontrolled experiment which is leading to unanticipated changes. We follow the twisting path of seemingly unrelated discoveries in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and even mathematics to learn how they led to our present knowledge of how our planet works. He explains why the weather is becoming increasingly chaotic as our planet warms at a rate far faster than at any time in its geologic past. He speculates on possible future outcomes, and suggests that nature itself may make some unexpected course corrections. Although the book is written for the layman with little knowledge of science or mathematics, it includes information from many diverse fields to provide even those actively working in the field of climatology with a broader view of this developing drama. Experimenting on a Small Planet is a must read for anyone having more than a casual interest in global warming and climate change - one of the most important and challenging issues of our time.
 

Innhold

Chapter 1 Introduction
3
Chapter 2 The Language of Science
25
Chapter 3 Geologic Time
63
4 Putting Numbers on Geologic Ages
97
Chapter 5 Documenting Past Climate Change
141
The Analogies with Water Waves and Sound
181
Figuring out What Light Really is
209
Chapter 8 Exploring The Electromagnetic Spectrum
239
Products and Protectors of Life
581
The Major Greenhouse Gas
603
Chapter 20 Carbon Dioxide
621
Chapter 21 Other Greenhouse Gases
673
Chapter 22 The Circulation of Earths Atmosphere and Ocean
701
Chapter 23 The Biological Interactions
735
Chapter 24 Sea Level
771
The Geologically Immediate Past
801

The Idea of Energy Balance
261
Chapter 10 The Climate System
293
Chapter 11 Whats at the Bottom of Alices Rabbit Hole
327
LongTerm Variations
375
Chapter 13 Solar Variability and Cosmic Rays
433
Chapter 14 Albedo
469
Chapter 15 Air
493
The Keystone of Earths Climate
515
Chapter 17 The Atmosphere
561
Chapter 26 Is There an Analog for the Future Climate?
835
Chapter 27 The Instrumental Temperature Record
857
Chapter 28 The Future
897
DEDICATION
941
FIGURE SOURCES
943
About the Author
957
Author Index
959
Subject Index
969
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Om forfatteren (2012)

Bill Hay began his academic career at University of Illinois in Urbana in 1960. From 1968 to 1974 he was Professor at both Illinois and the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. After serving as Dean of the Rosenstiel School he moved to Washington, D.C. to work on ensuring future scientific drilling in the ocean. In 1982 he moved to the University of Colorado, investigating ancient climates with colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Since 1988 he has also served as Guest and/or Professor at the Universities of Munich, Kiel and Greifswald in Germany, the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and the University of Vienna in Austria. He retired from the University of Kiel in 2002. He now lives in the Rocky Mountains, but returns to Europe frequently to teach intensive short courses.

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