Product Description

Providing a concise, up-to-date presentation of current knowledge of climate change and its implications for society as a whole, this new edition has been thoroughly updated and extended to include the latest information. The text describes the components of the global climate, considers how the many elements of climate combine to define its behaviour, and reviews how climate change is measured. The author discusses how the causes of climate change can be related to the evidence of change, and modelled to predict future changes. This book is ideally suited for introductory courses in meteorology, oceanography, environmental science, earth science, geography, agriculture and social science. It contains review questions at the end of each chapter to enable readers to monitor their understanding of the materials covered. This book should appeal to an audience with a keen interest in all aspects of the climate change debate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99791 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 390 pages

Review
'… a recommended read for the informed layman and student seeking a wider background in this topical but complex field.' Grant Bigg, Weather

'The book is well written, contains practically no mathematics and yet manages to explain, in a clear and attractive style, the subtleties of the subject … I recommend it to everybody interested in the climate of our earth.' Michael Hantel, Meteoroligsche Zeitschrift

'… the book enthusiastically achieves its aims of not oversimplifying but explaining the complexities of what is well established and unknown about the climate system for a wider audience …' Claire Goodess, International Journal of Climatology

‘Burroughs is to be congratulated for having written a serious and up-to-date book that competently surveys many highly technical aspects of modern climate science but manages to do so in a non-mathematical manner.’ American Meteorological Society

About the Author
William Burroughs is a professional science writer, and has published many books on weather and climate including Climate Change in Prehistory, Does the Weather Really Matter?, Weather Cycles, The Climate Revealed, and Watching the World's Weather (all with Cambridge University Press). In 2005 he received the Michael Hunt Award from the Royal Meteorological Society for his work in popularizing meteorology.

Customer Reviews

At last! A thorough introduction to climate change
I have just finished reading this excellent introduction to the science underpinning the current debate about climate change. Its subtitle, A Multidisciplinary Approach, describes it perfectly. It begins with the science of meteorology, then works through the insights of geology and paleoclimatology to help the reader understand the complexities of natural variability in the distant and more recent past. It takes the reader carefully through the basic science and then guides her through the necessary statistics to equip her with the tools to read and assess the growing body of scientific and popular literature on this most important topic. It explains the way the global climate models are created and carefully explores their limitations and potential. Then, and only then, does it look at possible human influences on the climate.

I found it such a relief compared to the majority of books on this subject which seem to treat the natural variability of our climate as an afterthought. Burrough's final chapter brings it all together with a balanced assessment of the arguments underpinning the claim for 'a discernible human influence on the climate' and makes his own cautious recommendations about ways forward.

I have read many popular books, IPCC reports and scientific papers. But not for some time and I need to get up-to-date, so I decided to buy this one to brush up on the science, before reading the latest reports. It was demanding, but rewarding work. I am not a scientist and I often find it difficult to evaluate the material I am reading. Understanding and evaluating the science will still be difficult, but I feel much better equipped now that I have read this excellent book. I recommend it highly.

Not quite up to my expectations.......
I was rather disappointed with this book, but hope both author and publisher will consider a second, improved edition. It would still be worthwhile. The author's stated goal was to nudge a reader not specialised in weather and atmospheric science towards forming a reasoned opinion about the current debate on human-induced climate change, offering introductory treatments of various relevant topics chapter by chapter.
Chapters 2 and 3 see too many irons in their fire while lacking a general, if elementary treatment of the basics of oceanic and atmospheric structure and circulation. What's been just mentioned there is definitely not enough and I doubt a reader outside the circles of advanced natural science can gain any clear idea of what the physical difference is between troposphere and stratosphere or why we get Rossby waves circling all around the globe and so on... Lots of important background information has been just glossed over.
I understand the author wanted to keep pages as few as possible, but the result is uninformative to layreaders and banal to another Earth scientist...
Chapter 4 is very systematic and well conceived in its structure, but the description of climatic phases in our planet's history is still too concise. Even meaningless when many explanations and interpretations of data are just not offered. The general reader will never understand the reasons why we think this and that.. In stark contrast to this, a somewhat needless explanation of the most elementary principles of stratigraphy on page 75!
In spite of this letdown for starters, the remaining chapters are actually a lot better. Maybe a bit essential, but clear and balanced. With an exception for chap. 7, intended to be a conversational intro to some statistical concepts and elaborations as applied to the field, but once again too little space devoted to explain the mathematics behind, and the reader is stuck (well, I was..)(but then I never was a genius at maths!) when evaluations and pros and cons are offered of one doesn't exactly know what!
There is a lot that can be improved, and especially added. Conciseness has its limits. I reckon some 50 more pages would offer room enough for treatment of some topics beyond a mere mention. The author suggests relying on other textbooks for a better grasp of what basic elements of climate science are required, but this is somehow a denial of his original intent...