The Climate Question

Natural Cycles, Human Impact, Future Outlook
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-0-19-091087-7
Verlag: Oxford University Press, USA

Buch, Englisch, 176 Seiten, Format (B × H): 172 mm x 218 mm, Gewicht: 328 g

In 2015, annual average atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels surpassed a level of 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in three million years. This has caused widespread concern among climate scientists, and not least among those that work on natural climate variability in prehistoric times, before humans. These people are known as "past climate" or palaeoclimate researchers, and author Eelco J. Rohling is one of them. The Climate Question
offers a background to these concerns in straightforward terms, with examples, and is motivated by Rohling's personal experience in being intensely quizzed about whether modern change is not all just part of a natural cycle, whether nature will not simply resolve the issue for us, or whether it won't be just up to
some novel engineering to settle things quickly.

This book discusses in straightforward terms why climate changes, how it has changed naturally before the industrial revolution made humans important, and how it has changed since then. It compares the scale and rapidity of variations in pre-industrial times with those since the industrial revolution, infers the extent of humanity's impacts, and looks at what these may lead to in the future. Rohling brings together both data and process understanding of climate change. Finally, the book
evaluates what Mother Nature could do to deal with the human impact by itself, and what our options are to lend her a hand.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rohling, Eelco J

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geologie Geologie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer
• Technische Wissenschaften Energietechnik | Elektrotechnik Energietechnik & Elektrotechnik
• Technische Wissenschaften Energietechnik | Elektrotechnik Technologien für Fossile Energieträger
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltverschmutzung, Umweltkriminalität, Umweltrecht
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Geographische Entdeckungen und Erkundung
• Technische Wissenschaften Verfahrenstechnik | Chemieingenieurwesen | Biotechnologie Brennstoffe, Kraftstoffe, Explosivstoffe

Über Autor(innen)

Eelco J. Rohling is based at the Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra (since 2013), and secondarily affiliated with the University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, UK (since 1994). His research focuses on ocean and climate change with emphasis on sea level, climate sensitivity, and past episodes of enhanced carbon burial in ocean sediments.