An edition of Global weirdness
(2012)
Global weirdness
severe storms, deadly heat waves, relentless drought, rising seas and the weather of the future
1st Vintage book ed.
by Climate Central, Inc
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Global Weirdness summarizes, in clear and accessible prose, everything we know about the science of climate change; explains what is likely to happen to the climate in the future; and lays out in practical terms what we can and cannot do to avoid further shifts. Sixty easy-to-read entries tackle such questions as: Is climate ever "normal"? Why and how do fossil-fuel burning and other human practices produce greenhouse gases? What natural forces have caused climate change in the past? What risks does climate change pose for human health? What accounts for the diminishment of mountain glaciers and small ice caps around the world since 1850? What are the economic costs and benefits of reducing carbon emissions?
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Previews available in: English
| Edition | Availability |
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1
Global weirdness: severe storms, deadly heat waves, relentless drought, rising seas and the weather of the future
2013, Vintage Books
in English
- 1st Vintage book ed.
0307743365 9780307743367
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2
Global weirdness: severe storms, deadly heat waves, relentless drought, rising seas, and the weather of the future
2012, Pantheon Books
in English
0307907309 9780307907301
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zzzz
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Book Details
Table of Contents
I. What the science says
1. "Normal climate" meant something different to the dinosaurs and the woolly mammoths than it does to us
2. The climate has changed dramatically in the past
3. Our ancestors survived climate change : but it wasn't always pretty
4. Dinosaurs didn't drive gas-guzzlers or use air-conditioning
5. Carbon dioxide is like a planetwide sweat suit (sort of)
6. "Global warming" or "climate change?" : doesn't matter, it's all the same
7. Weather is not climate; climate is not weather : except they kind of are
8. On Venus, the Greenhouse Effect makes it hot enough to melt lead
9. Carbon dioxide is only part of the problem
10. Once we invented the steam engine, climate change was pretty much inevitable
11. The ozone hole is not global warming; global warming is not the ozone hole
12. The Northern Hemisphere has heated up more in the past half century than in any similar period going back many hundreds of years
13. Coal alone churns out 20 percent of human greenhouse emissions
14. A quarter of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels, and it's on the way up
15. If we stopped burning fossil fuels, we'd keep emitting greenhouse gases
16. No natural force has been able to explain the recent warming
17. CO2 could stay in the air for hundreds or thousands of years, trapping heat the whole time
18. Extra CO2 going into the sea is making the ocean more acidic
19. Cutting down forests means more CO2 stays in the atmosphere
20. Stop all greenhouse emissions and the temperature will keep going up
21. Want an exact number for how warm it will get? : sorry, scientists don't have one
22. Melting ice makes the ocean rise : but it's not the only factor
23. Nobody ever said global warming means every year will be hotter than the last
24. Nobody ever said the whole world will warm up at the same rate
25. The poles are warming faster than other places : that's just what climate scientists predicted.
II. What's actually happening
26. The atmosphere now holds a record amount of CO2 : unless you go back half a million years or more
27. Sea level is eight inches higher than it was in 1900
28. Earth's temperature is about 1.4 degrees higher than it was in 1900
29. The Continental United States had twice as many record-high temperatures during the first decade of the Twenty-First Century as record lows
30. Glaciers and ice caps have been shrinking since about 1850
31. Greenland is losing ice faster all the time
32. Polar bears will suffer as sea ice continues to melt
33. The growing season in the Continental United States is two weeks longer than it was in 1900
34. Ecosystems around the world are already seeing big changes as the climate warms
35. Some species can adapt to changing climate a lot better than others
36. The Arctic has been losing ice much faster than the Antarctic. That's just what scientists expected.
37. Arctic Sea ice has been on a mostly downward spiral for the past thirty years
38. Droughts, torrential rains, and other extreme weather are happening more often than they used to
39. Rising ocean temperatures are causing a major die-off in corals.
III. What's likely to happen in the future
40. Computer models aren't perfect. This isn't a big surprise
41. Since we don't know whether and how much people might cut greenhouse-gas emissions, it's hard to know exactly how high the temperature will go by 2100
42. An imperfect but still pretty good prediction : sea level will rise two to six feet by 2100. But that could change
43. The effects of greenhouse gases won't magically stop in 2100
44. Best guess about Atlantic hurricanes in the future : fewer, but more powerful
45. Whatever happens with hurricanes, higher sea level will make the storm surges they cause more destructive
46. Climate change will force people to move, but whether it's a million people or a hundred million is hard to say
47. Climate change can be bad for your health
48. Climate change can be bad for the health of entire species, and even for their survival
49. Freshwater will become scarcer
50. Droughts will probably come more often
51. Climate change is likely to destabilize the food supply.
IV. Can we avoid the risks of climate change?
52. Who says a 2 degree Celsius temperature rise won't bring really bad consequences? : not scientists
53. Using ethanol in your car can reduce emissions : but not always by a lot
54. Burning coal doesn't necessarily mean emitting greenhouse gases
55. Wind energy can't solve our emissions problem by itself : neither can other renewables
56. Energy costs are likely to rise in the short term if we limit carbon emissions
57. Nuclear energy is essentially carbon-free : that doesn't mean it's without issues
58. Even if we can't reduce emissions, futuristic technology could save us. Maybe. And it could be risky
59. If we made it easier for plants and animals to relocate, we might prevent some species from going extinct
60. Reducing emissions has benefits and costs. But it's hard to pin down exactly what they are
Epilogue : the IPCC is what, exactly?.
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-211).
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