Customer Reviews

The Coming Global Superstorm

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

Expecting to read more of the "same-old" doomsday speculation rampant on Art Bell's radio show, this book suprised me with both its message and its scope. With the exception of some of the initial chapters, which provide an overview of recent theories regarding the age of mankind, the entire book was new material for me. It was the first time I'd heard of a "superstorm", how one would form, and the effects such a storm would have. The prospect is terrifying.

The book is so well-written, however, that I felt the book's message was a call to action rather than an simply a disruptive alarm. The authors cleverly intersperse realistic-yet-fictional scenes of the onset of such a storm between the factual, sometimes dry prose. The result is a book that is extremely informative and a pleasure to read (similar to "The Hot Zone").

Grounded in science and only minimally speculative(the authors state very clearly where they do so), this book is well worth reading and contemplating. I hope the book finds its way into academia soon.

According to this new book, a monstrous storm of extremely damaging winds, nonstop snow and ice is on its way and could mean the end of our civilization. Depending on when the storm arrives, whether it is Winter or Summer, will determine whether we enter another Ice Age. The main brunt of the reason for the storm is that the North Atlantic Current, which helps maintain our current climate, will shift - allowing for Arctic air to plunge southward. Bell and Strieber claim that Global Warming has moved forward this natural phenomena of superstorms by several thousand years because of humans' poor stewardship of the planet (use of fossil fuels, toxic waste etc.) "Nineteen ninety-nine was the most violent year in the modern history of weather. So was 1998. So was 1997. And 1996." This period of violent weather is a warning, say the authors. Bell and Strieber point to woolly mammoths frozen while chewing vegetation and frozen orange trees found in northern Siberia as proof of prior superstorms which occur suddenly, without any warning. Many other interesting theories abound in the book, including the possibility of a technologically advanced civilization that lived about 10,000 years ago, but was wiped out by the last superstorm.

Art Bell is a well-known radio talk show host. His show covers conspiracy theories, UFOs, unexplained phenomena, global warming and other unusual topics. Whitley Strieber is best known as being the author of the bestselling book, Communion: A True Story, an account of alien abduction. Bell and Strieber lay the groundwork for their theory of the coming superstorm in the main text, but there is also a running fictional account of what happens when the storm arrives. The fictional story is both exciting and frightening; it could have easily made a gripping sf novel on its own merit.

The authors show good scientific instincts in picking this outcome rather than the standard one; their conception of a sudden reorganization of prevailing wind currents that mixes tropic and artic air directly in a giant superstorm is a creative and credible hypothesis. The Coming Global Superstorm is a frightening book whose message of weather-generated doom will hit home for those who follow our increasingly bad weather. Even skeptics may find some of the scientific evidence hard to refute. Fans of Art Bell's show, weather buffs and geologists should find plenty of things to pique their interest here.

Though both Mr. Bell and Mr. Strieber have very vocal critics about their ideas and motives you cannot deny the impact that both individuals have had on our society's popular culture. Continuing to create debate and discussion is The Coming Global Superstorm which I am sure will create a "storm" of conversation with it's readers. Mixing both "fictional" scenarios as well as documented data Bell & Strieber paint what might be a very dim view of our planet's fate, but rest assured there is always a chance for change. Could a storm overtake the entire planet? If it did would we survive? This book takes on questions such as these and as Mr. Bell himself has said "..trys not to alarm, but inform." I may not always agree with the concepts of Mr. Bell and Mr. Strieber but as I sit in my office in SouthEastern Michigan this first week of December and watch the thermometer jump past 62 degrees I can't help but wonder, didn't it use to snow around here at this time of year?

This book pieces together three seemingly unrelated groups of facts to come to an astonishing conclusion: Earth's climate is inherently unstable, and we may be on the cusp of a catastrophic climate change.

The first cluster of facts relates to the evidence for escalating climate change, and I think they do a good job of collecting these while conceding valid criticisms of the orthodox global warming hypothesis (e.g., that global temperatures on the whole aren't rising nearly as fast as the computer models say that they should, given the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and that CO2 levels are even now anomalously low in geologic terms). They present a picture of global warming and species extinction that is primarily a result of very long-range climatological instability to which mankind may be contributing, rather than putting the whole burden of it on our shoulders. In this way, they avoid the shrill guilt-mongering tone of the environmentalists while gently suggesting that we as a species can do something about the problem. This is a very refreshing approach.

The second cluster of facts on which they draw concerns archaeological anomalies such as the Sphinx, the Baalbek ruins, the Cheops pyramid, etc., that are exceedingly hard to fit into the standard theories of man's prehistory. Astonishingly, they relate these to the whole global warming debate by positing that the ancient flood legends are a thinly-disguised history of what happened to the relatively advanced prehistoric civilization that must have created these imposing ruins. My one criticism of the book would be that in delving into this area, they revel too much in interpreting and extrapolating ancient legends, reinterpretations of the zodiac, etc., rather than sticking to very solid facts (such as the gigantic ruins created by the engineering feats of the ancients). In their defense, they do clearly state where they are speculating.

The third cluster of facts relate to actual archaeological and geological evidence of past superstorms and massive species extinctions caused thereby, such as the fossil evidence of sudden freezing of the mammoths, core samples of Greenland and Antarctic glaciers that show sudden temperature shifts and changes in atmospheric methane concentrations, etc. I thought most of this was quite solid.

The authors -- correctly, in my view -- don't extrapolate global warming trends linearly, but instead posit that these trends will reverse violently at some point. This isn't apocalyptic millenial madness; this is the way many chaotic systems behave. Earthquakes are a good example: the continents are drifting slowly with respect to each other, but the changes don't, in the main, happen gradually. There is a gradual buildup of energy and strain in the system, during which time everything appears to be reassuringly stable, and this is followed by a sudden, catastrophic release, and then the whole process repeats, on a very slow, geologic time scale -- to which the human mind accustoms itself only with great difficulty. The authors show good scientific instincts in picking this outcome rather than the standard one; their conception of a sudden reorganization of prevailing wind currents that mixes tropic and artic air directly in a giant superstorm is a creative and credible hypothesis (the Great Red Spot of Jupiter is such a storm, which has lasted for centuries -- the authors don't make this connection, however).

Weaving all this together with a fictional account of a future "superstorm" makes this a very readable book; the authors, being laymen, have done a good job of making science understandable while making relatively few mistakes and mischaracterizations. Popularizing science is hard to do without straying into the zone of junk science, but on the whole I think the authors succeed in doing this by being very clear on where they are speculating and where they are not.

I found this book to be very interesting, and, yes, frightening when we observe the current marked changes in weather patterns. The data which are presented about changes in the polar ice cap, etc., appear to be scientifically based, and clearly support our need to attend to what could be a problem of tremendous import for human kind. The backgrounds of the authors do detract from the credibility of the message, however. Reading the book does make me want to research this area further so that I may draw my own conclusions. For the most part, it is an interesting and provocative theory which could make sense on some level. I find the reviews of this book interesting in that people either tend to love it or hate it! Those who pan it so thoroughly may understandably be unwilling to accept such an extreme theory due to the fact that it is at odds with their own experience and it is frightening to consider. However, I think the authors make an important point in this regard: we are limited by our own perspective in that human beings have only been on this earth for a very brief time. Why do we think the earth is only about us? It has been here for eons before us, and none of us can know for sure what may or may not have happened before recorded history. I like the hope which the authors hold out that we can use our intelligence to solve what would be the biggest problem we have ever faced, though this certainly poses a tremendous challenge, as peoples of the world must work together in unprecedented ways if we are to succeed in our attempts at survival. We truly are in this together, like it or not, for better or worse!

I started this book a couple of days before the new year. Before I was half way through the book, severe storms with hurricane force winds had hit France. By the time I had finished the book the chief meterologist of the U.S. and Great Britain had issued a joint statement warning of global warning. Now Scotland has been hit by a storm with sustained winds of 100 m.p.h.

This is exactly the scenario Mr. Bell and Mr. Strieber lay out in their book. It made an already scary book even scarier.

This is a thought-provoking book and I recommend it for everyone.

Now that Y2K has come and gone, there's nothing to worry about -- right? Wrong, say radio talkshow host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, author of alien-encounter bestsellers "Communion" and "Confirmation." Unless you have an unlimited supply of food and fuel and don't mind the prospect of shoveling 50 feet of snow from your driveway, you'll want to read "The Coming Global Superstorm." In it, the two argue the current global warming could actually trigger a new ice age by melting the polar ice caps and changing the course of warm ocean currents that control weather from Seattle to Stockholm. The pair intersperse their non-fiction account of what is happening with an engrossing fictional tale told through the eyes of a National Weather Service employee. He quietly moves his family to Texas while Europe and the northern United States are pretty much plunged into weather-related anarchy -- that is, the parts that survive. As a literary work, this isn't exactly Shakespeare. But it isn't intended to be. Citing everything to mainstream press accounts to scientific journals throughout their narrative, the two authors dare doubters to go to their sources and see the raw data for themselves. As a news reporter for a Midwestern daily, I have double-checked many of their sources for an upcoming article -- and I am frightened.

I just finished The Coming Global Superstorm. What do I think of it? Its one an incredible read! I picked this book up on Friday and by Sunday I had read it three times! Both Art and Whitley have a way of griping the reader and holding on your attention! Its very hard to put this one down once you begin reading it! Art and Whitley did an outstanding job! the book is well put together and well thought out! They managed to tie in a fictional story of the Global Superstorm with the hard scientific facts.Also includes works from their abandoned book The Edge:Man's Mysterious Past and Incredible Future. Which they manage to tie in logically with the Superstorm. This book is very timely, I would like to thank both Art and Whitley for this book. This may well be the most important book you will ever read! This is no Doom and Gloom book- If we can stave off this Superstorm-and we CAN! Then we have a brilliant future ahead!- And we DO!

In the atmospheric scheme of things this book is not far fetched, nor totally out of line. The atmosphere works with a certain amount of equilibrium. Anyone can witness this fact while watching the Weather channel. To over simplify the process, when cold air plunges south from the North Pole(Northern Hemisphere)an equal amount of warm air rushes northward on the other side. Nature is keeping a balancing act. What goes up must come down, so to speak. Anyway as a climatologist and avid weather watcher, I can safely say the weather systems that will effect the planet earth will become larger and more intense and a rapid movement towards another Ice Age is certainly possible. Streiber and Hill back the book with lots of facts and this is a must read. By the way, Super-Typhoons( Hurricanes, Cyclones, etc) get that rating when maximum sustained winds exceed 155 mph. In the excerpt Super Typhoon max would have been Category 5 much sooner than reported in the book. Minor error.

I love Art dearly, but after reading this book you'll see why he wins the "Snuffed Candle" award from the Skeptical Inquirer . . . for dishonest reporting. I don't think Art means any harm though. He's a good guy, but he's exceptionally gullible, and he needs to gather all the facts before jumping to his conclusions. Please don't rush out and buy more of Art's products and survival gear. This is another version of Art's Y2K, and I dread the thought of so many people going broke and scaring themselves silly over this flawed reporting. If you check the actual weather stats, with a real, experienced weather man, you'll learn a lot of interesting facts that don't fit in with Art's global disaster.