Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Boxes
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- 2 RADIATION AND THE EARTH'S ENERGY BALANCE
- 3 THE ELEMENTS OF THE CLIMATE
- 4 EVIDENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
- 5 CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
- 6 THE MEASUREMENT OF CLIMATIC CHANGE
- 7 STATISTICS, SIGNIFICANCE AND CYCLES
- 8 THE CAUSES OF CLIMATIC CHANGE
- 9 MODELLING THE CLIMATE
- 10 PREDICTING CLIMATE CHANGE
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
1 - INTRODUCTION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Boxes
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- 2 RADIATION AND THE EARTH'S ENERGY BALANCE
- 3 THE ELEMENTS OF THE CLIMATE
- 4 EVIDENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
- 5 CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
- 6 THE MEASUREMENT OF CLIMATIC CHANGE
- 7 STATISTICS, SIGNIFICANCE AND CYCLES
- 8 THE CAUSES OF CLIMATIC CHANGE
- 9 MODELLING THE CLIMATE
- 10 PREDICTING CLIMATE CHANGE
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat plausible and wrong.
H. L. MenkenThe climate has always been changing. On every timescale, since the Earth was first formed its surface conditions have fluctuated. Past changes are etched on the landscape, have influenced the evolution of all lifeforms, and are a subtext of our economic and social history. Current changes are a central part of the debate about the consequences of human activities on the global environment, while the future course of the climate could exert powerful constraints on economic development, especially in developing countries. So for many physical and social sciences the subject of climate change is an underlying factor which needs to be appreciated in understanding how these disciplines fit in to the wider picture. The aim of this book is to provide a balanced view to assist the reader to give the right weight to the impact of climate change on their chosen disciplines. This will involve assessing how the climate can vary on its own accord and then adding in the question of how human activities may lead to further change.
The first thing to get straight is that there is nothing simple about how the climate changes. While the central objective of the book is to make the essence of the subject accessible, it is no help to you, the reader, to have an oversimplified presentation of the issues.
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- Information
- Climate ChangeA Multidisciplinary Approach, pp. 1 - 9Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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