Whole Story of Climate

In the publicity surrounding global warming, climate scientists are usually the experts consulted by the media. We rarely hear from geologists, who for almost two hundred years have been studying the history of Earth's dramatic and repeated climate revolutions, as revealed in the evidence of rocks and landscapes. This book, written by a geologist, describes the important contributions that geology has made to our understanding of climate change. What emerges is a much more complex and nuanced picture than is usually presented. While the average person often gets the impression that the Earth's climate would be essentially stable if it weren't for the deleterious effects of greenhouse gases, in fact the history of the earth over many millennia reveals a constantly changing climate. As the author explains, several long cold eras have been punctuated by shorter warm periods. The most recent of these warm spells, the one in which we are now living, started ten thousand years ago; based on previous patterns, we should be about due for the return of another frigid epoch. Some scientists even think that the warming of the planet caused by man-made greenhouse gasses tied to agriculture in the past few thousand years may have held off the next ice age. Though this may be possible, much remains uncertain.But what is clearly known is that major climate shifts can be appallingly rapid--occurring over as little as twenty or thirty years. One danger of dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is that they may increase the chance that this "climate switch" will be thrown, with catastrophic effects on worldwide agriculture. Besides her discussion of climate, the author includes chapters on how early naturalists pieced together the complicated geological history of Earth, and she teaches the reader how to interpret the evidence of rock formations and landscape patterns all around us.Accessible and engagingly written, this book is essential reading for anyone looking to understand one of our most important contemporary debates.

""This brilliant, engaging book will change the way one looks at the climate/global warming debate, climate change and climate science, human versus nonhuman drivers of climate change, and the implications of global warming/cooling for humans and societies.... Peters is thoughtful, thorough, and relentless... Essential." --Choice "A brilliant volume, unearthing new insight and churning the waters for a deeper hue and a better understanding of our dynamic world." --San Francisco Book Review "What to make of [confusing information on climate change]? Well, we laypersons can't make much of it at all, because we lack the knowledge to place the data in context. Luckily, for those really interested, a solution is available." --Philadelphia Inquirer "Modern geology has shown that the only constant is change. Peters's book - indispensable to those interested in climate change - takes the general reader on an elegantly written and engaging intellectual adventure into the history of the curious and clever ways that modern scientists have been able to construct a precise and richly detailed picture of the often-rapid variations of Earth's climate. No matter your attitude toward the climate-change controversy, this book will prove enlightening and valuable." --Jerry B. Gough, Emeritus professor, history of science, Washington State University

E. Kirsten Peters, PhD (Pullman, WA), is the author of three previous books on geology, most recently Planet Rock Doc. As the "Rock Doc," Dr. Peters publishes syndicated essays on science for newspapers across the nation and she reads some of her pieces on Northwest Public Radio. She taught geology and interdisciplinary science classes at Washington State University for ten years and is currently the director of major grant development for the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences.