FURTHER RESOURCES AND MATERIAL

 

References and links to auxiliary information that you may find useful to your study of Earth's climate.

 

MATH/CHEM REFRESHER INFORMATION
Appendix A, Horel and Geisler (1997) Global Environmental Change and Review of Fractions (4 pages)

Appendix A, Turco (1997) Earth Under Seige (11 pages)

Exponentials (2 pages)

SUPPLEMENTAL ARTICLES
See "Reports", which lists a large number of supplemental articles, related to this course.

SNOWBALL EARTH
Comprehensive website: www.snowballearth.org
<>Hoffman, P. F., and D. P. Schrag, Snowball Earth, Scientific American, January, 2000.  Has the ice-albedo feedback ever gone to its logical extreme - a completely ice-covered planet?  Only a decade ago, this was thought to be impossible (because, it was thought, it would have extinguished life and there would have been no way for the earth to recover from this state.)  Recent geological evidence, however, has led most scientists to agree that this did in fact happen.  This article describes the evidence for and implications of this theory in an engaging fashion.
Walker, G. (2003). Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe that Spawned Life as We Know It. New York, Crown, 269 pages.  Earth history and science history told in the engaging manner of an adventure story.  Trained as a scientist, Walker has a wonderful ability to portray the culture of science and the vivid personalities that push it forward.   "Snowball earth" is a startling recent development in Earth Science.  How this theory was conceived, fought over, and eventually accepted (more or less) makes great reading.

BLOGS on GLOBAL WARMING
Note: IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which reports every 5 years since 1990 on the current state of knowledge.  Preparing these reports is an arduous, careful process involving thousands of scientists and several stages of peer-review.  The result is by far the most comprehensive and authoritative documentation of what we know and how well we know it. 

The best, most authoritative and balanced blog is RealClimate.org.   Run and regularly updated by a team of scientists, several of whom are participants in the IPCC process.  Thus, this site basically reflects the "IPCC consensus", but expands greatly upon it by dealing with current articles/issues in the scientific and popular press.

A "skeptical" blog by a well-respected, practicing scientist, Roger Pielke, is Climate Science.  This is a serious scientist raising scientific objections and challenges to the "IPCC consensus" (not a political operative trying to muddy the water.)  In the words of Dr Pielke: "In July 2005, I launched a weblog called Climate Science... since the alternative views were not receiving a balanced presentation in the media and elsewhere... [This is] needed since the climate assessments such as the IPCC and the U.S. National Assessment... are led and written mostly by the same scientists who performed the original research.  While I do not question their sincerity and professional credentials to participate, such a circular assessment almost guarantees that a biased view of our understanding of the climate system will result.  I document examples of such bias on my web site.  I invite you and others to read my weblog, and comment as appropriate."  [Roger Pielke, Sr., Mar 9, 2006, by email].  This skeptical attitude is common and valuable within science.  Often, it is what drives science forward.  As a caution, however, one should be careful about giving the views of one scientist (or even a small group of scientists) the same weight as the statements hammered out by scientific committees and subsequently peer-reviewed.

GREAT BOOKS ON EARTH SCIENCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Weart, S. R. (2003). The Discovery of Global Warming. London, Harvard University Press, 228 pages.
Outstanding and ongoing work of science history.  The story of how scientists in the 19th and 20th centuries pieced together, first, an understanding of how trace gases in the atmosphere keep the surface warm and, second, how humans are disturbing this climate system by burning fossil fuels.  Written at the layperson level, but tremendously valuable even for scientists working in the field.  The entire book, in constantly updated form, exists on the web (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/).

Sarewitz, D., R. A. J. Pielke and R. J. Byerly (2000). Prediction: Science, Decision Making and the Future of Nature. Washington, D. C., Island Press, 405 pages. A unique exploration of the uneasy relationship between science and policy.   Each chapter explores in depth one of a wide variety of examples, mostly from the earth sciences.  Policy formation generally includes scientific considerations, but once policies are implemented, they are rarely subjected to anything approaching rigorous scientific evaluation.  My favorite chapters are 6 ("The asteroid/comet impact hazard: Homo sapiens as dinosaur?") and 8 ("What you know can hurt you: Predicting the behavior of nourished beaches").  Also relevant to this course would be 11 ("Oil and gas resource appraisal: Diminishing reserves, increasing supplies") and 13 ("Prediction and other approaches to climate change").

Walker, G. (2003). Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe that Spawned Life as We Know It. New York, Crown, 269 pages.  Earth history and science history told in the engaging manner of an adventure story.  Trained as a scientist, Walker has a wonderful ability to portray the culture of science and the vivid personalities that push it forward.   "Snowball earth" is a startling recent development in Earth Science.  How this theory was conceived, fought over, and eventually accepted (more or less) makes great reading.

Pollack, H. N. (2003). Uncertain Science... Uncertain World. Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge, 243 pages. A lucid explanation for non-scientists of the nature of scientific knowledge with a focus on the problem of global warming.   The theme of "uncertainty" runs throughout - from the problem of defining fundamental units of measurement like the meter to the problem of predicting the behavior of complex  systems like the global climate.  But in science "uncertainty" is not the same a "lack of knowledge" -  rather, it is something that the scientific method allows us to quantify.  This distinction is critical to thinking about how science can assist societal decision-making in relation to the natural world.

Turco, R. P. (1997). Earth Under Siege:  From Air Pollution to Global Change. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 525 pages.
Excellent text on earth system, with focus on atmosphere, and human perturbation from air pollution to global climate change.   Thorough, authoritative, yet engaging style of presentation.  Last chapter is the most careful discussion I have seen of various "climate engineering" proposals to deal with global warming.

Jacobson, M. C., R. J. Charlson, H. Rodhe and G. H. Orians (editors) (2000): Earth System Science: From Biogeochemical Cycles to Global Change. Academic Press, 527 pages. Comprehensive, well-organized text and resource intended for scientists and science majors.  Many chapters written by UW faculty.

Ward, P. D. and D. Brownlee (2000). Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. New York, Copernicus, 335, pages. Comments: Two UW professors advance their controversial theory that we may very well be alone in the universe.  Their argument is built upon a comprehensive analysis of the conditions required for complex life to emerge and survive.  Thus, this serves as an excellent text on earth system science, but from an unusual perspective.  Chapter 3: Building a Habitable Earth, is particularly relevant to this course.