Table of Contents
Introduction viii
Acknowledgments xi
4.567 Billion BCE Earth Gets an Atmosphere 1
4.3 Billion BCE Water World 3
2.9 Billion BCE Pink Skies and Ice 5
2.7 Billion BCE First Fossil Traces of Raindrops 7
2.4 Billion-423 Million BCE The Icy Path to Fire 9
252 Million BCE Lethal Heat and the "Great Dying" 11
66 Million BCE Dinosaurs' Demise, Mammals Rise 13
56 Million BCE The Feverish Eocene 15
34 Million BCE A Southern Ocean Chills Things 17
10 Million BCE The Rise of Tibet and the Asian Monsoon 19
100,000 BCE Climate Pulse Propels Populations 21
15,000 BCE A Super Drought 23
9,700 BCE The Fertile Crescent 25
5,300 BCE North Africa Dries and the Pharaohs Rise 27
5,000 BCE Agriculture Warms the Climate 29
350 BCE Aristotle's Meteorologies 31
300 BCE China Shifts from Mythology to Meteorology 33
1088 ce Shen Kuo Writes of Climate Change 35
1100 Medieval Warmth to a Little Ice Age 37
1571 The Age of Sail 39
1603 The Invention of Temperature 41
1637 Deciphering the Rainbow 43
1644 The Weight of the Atmosphere 45
1645 A Spotless Sun 47
1714 Fahrenheit Standardizes Degrees 49
1721 Four Seasons on Four Strings 51
1735 Mapping the Winds 53
1752 Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod 55
1755 Franklin Chases a Whirlwind 57
1783 First Weather Balloon Flight 59
1792 The Farmer's Almanac 61
1802 Luke Howard Names the Clauds 63
1802 Humboldt Maps a Connected Planet 65
1806 Beaufort Classifies the Winds 67
1814 London's Last Frost Fair 69
1816 An Eruption, Famine, and Monsters 71
1818 Watermelon Snow 73
1830 An Umbrella for Everyone 75
1840 Ice Ages Revealed 77
1841 Peat Bog History 79
1845 Cold Dooms an Arctic Explorer 81
1856 Scientists Discover Greenhouse Gases 83
1859 Space Weather Comes to Earth 85
1861 First Weather Forecasts 87
1862 California's Great Deluge 89
1870 Meteorology Gets Useful 91
1871 Midwestern Firestorms 93
1880 "Snowflake" Bentley 95
1882 Coordinating Arctic Science 97
1884 First Photographs of Tornadoes 99
1886 Groundhog Day 101
1887 Putting Wind to Work 103
1888 The Great White Hurricane 105
1888 Deadliest Hailstorm 107
1896 First International Cloud Atlas 109
1896 Coal, CO2, and the Climate 111
1900 A Mighty Storm 113
1902 "Manufactured Weather" 115
1903 The Windshield Wiper 117
1903 A Dry Discovery 119
1911 The Great Blue Norther 121
1912 Orbits and Ice Ages 123
1922 A "Forecast Factory" 125
1931 "China's Sorrow" 127
1934 The Fastest Wind Gust 129
1935 The Dust Bowl 131
1941 Russia's "General Winter" 133
1943 Hurricane Hunters 135
1944 The Jet Stream Becomes a Weapon 137
1946 Rainmakers 139
1950 The First Computerized Forecast 141
1950 Tornado Warnings Advance 143
1952 London's Great Smog 145
1953 North Sea Flood 147
1958 The Rising Curve of CO2 149
1960 Watching Weather from Orbit 151
1960 Chaos and Climate 153
1965 A President's Climate Warning 155
1967 Climate Models Come of Age 157
1973 Storm Chasing Gets Scientific 159
1975 Dangerous Downbursts Revealed 161
1978 Sea Level Threat in Antarctic Ice 163
1983 The Coldest Place on Earth 165
1983 Nuclear Winter 167
1986 Forecasting El Niño 169
1988 Global Warming Becomes News 171
1989 Proof of Electrical "Sprites" 173
1993 Climate Clues in Ice and Mud 175
2006 The Human Factor in Weather Disasters 177
2006 Climate by Design? 179
2006 Long-Distance Dust 181
2007 Tracking the Oceans' Climate Role 183
2012 Science Probes the Political Climate 185
2012 Settling a Hot Debate 187
2014 The Polar Vortex 189
2015 Climate Diplomacy from Rio through Paris 191
2016 Arctic Sea Ice Retreat 193
2016 Extreme Lightning 195
2017 Reefs Feel the Heat 197
102,018 ce An End to Ice Ages? 199
Contributors 200
References 201
Image Credits 209
Index 210
About the Authors 212