Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means for Our Future

Climate Crash is an excellent book that shows that climate is far more unstable than conventional wisdom thought possible, with our planet's climate tending towards either very warm or very cold. The most recent 10,000 years, in which humans learned to grow their own food, has been one of unusual stability. This long stable climate has created a mindset that fools us into thinking climate cannot change very quickly in a lifetime. Using glacial ice cores and ocean sediment cores, paleo-climatologists have constructed a climate history that is anything but stable. I was expecting this book to have more on what global warming could do to society in the future, but most of the book is squarely set in the proven past. However, as historians like to say "past is prologue", which means that we can expect future climate to change rather quickly. Most likely, the change will be one of extreme warming because of the positive feedback cycles involved in a warmer world becoming warmer for a variety of reasons (melting ice caps expose more open ocean, which in turn heats up faster than ice caps). Not really a global warming book, but a great book on climate change in the past and what it might portend for climate change in the future.

I was taught that climate is what you expect, and that weather is what you get. But it appears that in times of climate change, climate itself can be unpredictable. And this book shows instances from the historical record of sudden climate changes. The emphasis of this book is on the data obtained from ice columns in Greenland. And these data confirm the view that there can be quick and relatively unpredictable warm and cold reversals. Some geologists used to emphasize the view that the "present is the key to the past," by which they meant that since we do not see abrupt climate changes in the present, they ought not be present in the past. But that view is changing. I guess this means that those of us who are busy buying property miles from the ocean in the arctic, expecting it to be warm ocean front property in the future, may wind up with it being cold, even further from the ocean, or even ice-covered. More to the point, manmade effects on the environment could in fact trigger (or not trigger) rather unexpected and sudden climate changes, some of which could be worse than gradual global warming. It's not easy for scientists to cope with the problem of wanting to tell all they know about global warming and at the same time avoid making alarming statements before being able to confirm their validity. That's why many scientists are a little cautious about the topic of climate change. I think the proper thing to do here is to remain cautious about the conclusions but be as forthcoming as possible about the most recent data. In addition, I think we need to get as much data as we can in order to try to improve our predictive abilities as much as we can, even though this ability may be more limited than we might have hoped. I recommend this book.

This is not the topic Al Gore is writing about, the effects of global warming. John Cox is looking at historic climate change, the coming and waning of past ice ages. Only in the last chapter does he address the question: what does the historic record mean for the future of the earth under global warming. The last three decades have seen great advances in developing proxy records of the past, particularly from miles long columns drilled from the glacial ice, from tree rings, and from deep sea drill cores. The Greenland ice columns in particular provide a record of the last 110 000 years, which can be resolved almost year by year. At the end of the last ice age a number of very rapid warm and cold reversals occurred. In particular the ice suddenly returned, (the younger "dryas" period) after which the temperatures warmed very abruptly within the span of only one to three years. The major thesis of the book is that climate, like weather, is a chaotic system, subject to sudden and surprising changes. Cox tells the story of this research and of the important scientists involved. He provides a clear and interesting narrative. He emphasizes repeatedly "we are still a long way from understanding how our climate system accomplished the large and abrupt changes so richly recorded in ice and sediment." (p. 155). Great advances in theory and process are needed before we have adequate understanding of past and future climate. From the past it is clear the future will bring surprises we don't anticipate and abrupt climate changes for which mankind is ill prepared. Loading the atmosphere with carbon and methane is pulling the tail of the dragon of global warming, which will rear up to devour us. The final chapter examines some of the climate change events which are causing the droughts, floods, and hurricanes, the melting ice and glacier break up we experience today.

Despite the title of this book, which I'm sure must have been chosen by the publisher to sell the book, this is an extremely clear and well written account of the evidence for abrupt climate change in ice cores, ocean floor sediments, and the like. That sounds boring, but the book is anything but. I read it twice in succession because it does such a great job of providing the context for understanding current issues in climate science, and because the story is written in such a compelling fashion. Cox is a science journalist, and a good one. The book is pitched, I think, for someone who has had some science courses in college, but requires no specialized knowledge of climate science. I've been replacing all the light bulbs in my house with compact florescents ever since I read this excellent book!

Even though the subtitle of the book is "Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means for Our Future" [in which the author does a good job at showing why the future of our planet's climate is still unknown and possibly unknowable], the real importance of John D. Cox's Climate Crash is the book's detailed description of at least 80 years of research on the past climates of the planet Earth. Cox, a science journalist well versed in the earth sciences, shows step-by-step how scientists have arrived at the conclusion that the Earth's climate can shift very quickly [on scales of years or decades] from state to state. This is important information for anybody interested in the current scientific and political debates concerning the future of our planet's climate. My only complaint is that the book contains a few typos [In chapter 1, we meet Alfred Lohar Wegener, but at the beginning of chapter 3, he's Alfred Wegner. I'm sure the ghost of Alfred Lothar Wegener doesn't mind - it's nice to see him mentioned in a context other than plate tectonics.] If you read this book and then you still think that NOT dealing with the level of anthropogenic greenhouse gases is an okay way to go, you're a much braver person than I am! I enjoyed Climate Crash immensely and recommend it to anyone with an interest in climatology, geology, polar research, or the scientific method.