Product Description

John Houghton’s market-leading textbook is now in full colour and includes the latest IPCC findings, making it the definitive guide to climate change. Written for students across a wide range of disciplines, its simple, logical flow of ideas gives an invaluable grounding in the science and impacts of climate change and highlights the need for action on global warming. Is there evidence for climate changing due to human activities? How do we account for recent extremes of weather and climate? Can global electricity provision and transport ever be carbon free? Written by a leading figure at the forefront of action to confront humanity’s most serious environmental problem, this undergraduate textbook comprehensively explores these and other issues, allowing students to think through the problem, assess the data and draw conclusions on the action that should be taken, by governments, by industry and by each and every one of us.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32119 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Review
‘This book has become the standard introductory text for explaining the mechanics and the implications of global warming … it provides one of the most readable and authoritative statements of the basic science and its implications.’ Simon Napper, Biologist

‘… the definitive scientific book on global warming by one of the few authors who is actually in a position to give a ‘complete briefing’.’ David Lorimer, Director, Scientific and Medical Network

‘This book is, of course, a must for students … and for those people who want a clear and calm exposition of what global warming is, why it really matters and what we can do about it.’ Fred Pearce, Guest Reviewer, Focus (Science and Technology)

‘Well written, well organised, richly illustrated and referenced, it should be required reading for anybody concerned with the fate of our planet.’ Elmar R. Reiter, Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics

‘It is difficult to imagine how Houghton’s exposition of this complex body of information might be substantially improved upon … Seldom has such a complex topic been presented with such remarkable simplicity, directness and crystalline clarity … Houghton’s complete briefing is without doubt the best briefing the concerned citizen could hope to find within the pages of a pocketable book.’ John Perry, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

‘… precise account of the science, accompanied by figures, graphs, boxes on specific points, and summaries at the end of each chapter, with questions for students … ranges beyond the science into the diplomacy, politics, economics and ethics of the problem...’ Sir Crispin Tickell, The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘ … a useful book for students and laymen to understand some of the complexities of the global warming issue…At a student-friendly price, this is a book to buy for yourself and not rely on the library copy.’ Allen Perry, Holocene

'Sir John Houghton, in this Fourth Edition of his book: Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, has written what should be the last word in this magisterial presentation of the latest science based very much on the IPCC Assessments. … The book, almost seductively, leads the reader through the essential science behind the issue of climate change. … The book contains an elegant description of changes in the climate over the past one hundred, thousand and million years …' John Stone, Bulletin of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanography Society

About the Author
Sir John Houghton CBE, FRS is a former Chairman of the Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Chairman of the UK’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Vice President of the World Meteorological Organisation, President of the Royal Meteorological Society, and Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Oxford University. He was Chief Executive of the UK Meteorological Office from 1983 to his retirement in 1991. As well as the previous editions of this book, he is author of The Physics of Atmospheres (Cambridge University Press, in three editions), and has published numerous research papers and contributed to many influential research documents.

Customer Reviews

the best guide to climate change.
This is a balanced and comprehensive account of the science behind climate change, including discussions of its causes, and different models for predicting future temperature increases. It is probably the best guide to global warming.

Lucid summary of best available science
Lucidly written by an outstanding scientist, discusses the many factors and mechanisms involved, and places anthropogenic change in its context along with natural factors. The scientific consensus on this issue has shifted steadily in one direction, from airy speculation about whether man-made change is real, to pressing concerns about how much, how soon, to what effect, and what to do about it; this book shows why.

Excellent summary of scientific evidence for global warming
This book presents the scientific evidence for global warming and man's involvement in it. While much of the science is explained in lay terms, some of the data tables assume a scientific background. It explains the variability of the climate models and the future global lifestyle assumptions used to predict the future. The author is chairman of the Science committee of UN International Panel on Climate Change, hardly a "Junk Scientist" as a previous review stated.

However, it makes little attempt to squash some of the wilder opposing arguments still being bandied around by some sceptics.
(I allow that there are still some areas for discussion).