Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future / Edition 1

by Marie-Antoinette Mélières, Chloé Maréchal

Overview

This book is designed for first- and second-year university students (and their instructors) in earth science, environmental science, and physical geography degree programmes worldwide. The summaries at the end of each section constitute essential reading for policy makers and planners. It provides a simple but masterly account, with a minimum of equations, of how the Earth’s climate system works, of the physical processes that have given rise to the long sequence of glacial and interglacial periods of the Quaternary, and that will continue to cause the climate to evolve. Its straightforward and elegant description, with an abundance of well chosen illustrations, focuses on different time scales, and includes the most recent research in climate science by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It shows how it is human behaviour that will determine whether or not the present century is a turning point to a new climate, unprecedented on Earth in the last several million years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118708521
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/04/2015
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Marie-Antoinette Mélières, Docteur d’Etat in physics, taught basic physics and, later, climate and environmental science at Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble 1 and at the University of Savoie. Her research has covered various areas ranging from molecular spectroscopy and atmospheric physics to environmental and climate science. In 1995 she established the newsletter Global Change, published by the French National Committee on Climate Change, under the authority of the Academy of Sciences. The Committee is the French branch of the four international programs IGBP, WCRP, IHDP and Diversitas. She continued to edit this publication until 2008.

Chloé Maréchal, PhD, geochemist, is Maître de Conférences in the Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, where she teaches Earth Sciences at first university degree level and at Masters level. In her research into the biogeochemical cycles of copper and zinc in the Earth’s outer layers, she established a protocol for using isotopes of these elements by plasma-source mass spectrometry and investigated their isotopic fractionation in marine sediments, as well as in soils affected by human activity. She also worked on the geochemical cycle of boron, using its isotopic signal in marine biogenic carbonates as a tool in paleo-oceanographic reconstructions.

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Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

Acknowledgements xv

About the companion website xvii

Introduction 1

Part I: The Climate Engine of The Earth: Energy 5

1. Why are there many different climates on Earth? 7

2. Different climates . . . such diversity of life 11

3. From a patchwork of climates to an average climate 19

4. The global mean climate 27

5. Atmosphere and ocean: key factors in climate equilibrium 33

Part II: More On The Energy Balance of The Planet 55

6. Thermal radiation, solar andterrestrial radiation 57

7. The impact of the atmosphere on radiation 61

8. Radiative transfer through the atmosphere 73

9. The energy balance 87

10. Climate forcing and feedback 93

11. Climate modelling 99

Part III: The Different Causes of Climate Change 109

12. The choice of approach 111

13. The Sun’s emission 115

14. The position of the Earth with respect to the Sun 119

15. The composition of the atmosphere 129

16. Heat transfer from the Equator to the poles 135

17. Oscillations due to ocean–atmosphere interactions 137

Part IV: Learning From The Past … 149

18. Memory of the distant past 151

19. Since 2.6 million years ago: the dance of glaciations 161

20. Glacial–interglacial cycles and the Milankovitch theory 181

21. The glaciation dance: consequences and lessons 191

22. The past 12,000 years: the warm Holocene 201

23. Global and regional fluctuations(Timescale 3: decades) 225

24. Future warming and past climates 231

Part V: Climate Change in Recent Years 241

25. Recent climate change 243

26. The impact of global warming on the cryosphere 257

27. The impact of warming on the ocean 273

28. The impact of warming on the biosphere 285

29. Warming in the 20th century: natural or human‐induced? 297

Part VI: Climate in The 21st Century: Different Scenarios 323

30. Two key factors 325

31. Projections: economic scenarios and climate models 329

32. Simulations: a survey 333

33. Future warming and its consequences 343

34. The choice 355

35. Climate change in the present state of the planet 363

Conclusion 369

References 373

Index 383

Editorial Reviews

"this is a beautifully produced book which is a must for anyone interested in climatology but the reader must be prepared for some hardwork—this is certainly no coffee table book!" (Chromatographia 2016)

From the Publisher