Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming - The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC [Paperback]

Michael E. Mann (Author), Lee R. Kump (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2008

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been issuing the essential facts and figures on climate change for nearly two decades. But the hundreds of pages of scientific evidence quoted for accuracy by the media and scientists alike, remain inscrutable to the general public who may still question the validity of climate change.

Esteemed climate scientists Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump, have partnered with DK Publishing to present Dire Predictions-an important book in this time of global need. Dire Predictions presents the information documented by the IPCC in an illustrated, visually-stunning, and undeniably powerful way to the lay reader. The scientific findings that provide validity to the implications of climate change are presented in clear-cut graphic elements, striking images, and understandable analogies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This rendering of meticulous, documented climate research, stunning crisp photos, remarkable artwork, and easy to read charts strikes clear, individual notes, while still managing to come together fully in the glossy pages like a stirring symphony of popular science." -- DailyKos.com, July 2008

Dire Predictions is a must read for anyone who wants the straight facts on global warming. It cuts to the heart of the massive 2007 IPCC report, presenting major scientific findings in easy to understand language and graphics. Written by two of the scientific community's most thoughtful researchers, Dire Predictions' unbiased message about global warming arrives at a time when people need it most! -- Heidi Cullen, The Weather Channel

Here's a powerful, straight-forward guide to how scientists, economists, and engineers really understand the problem of global warming. It makes 20 years of research and consensus-building completely accessible to anyone who cares to know the truth--and to do something about it. -- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: DK Publishing; Edition Unstated edition (July 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780756639952
• ISBN-13: 978-0756639952
• ASIN: 0756639956
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #226,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth's climate system.

Dr. Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA's outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2012. He is a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society

Dr. Mann is author of more than 150 peer-reviewed and edited publications, and has published two books: Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming in 2008 and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, in 2012. He is also a co-founder and avid contributor to the award-winning website "RealClimate.org".

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you only read one book on climate change, this is the one! July 28, 2008

By Kerry Walters VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you're like me, you've longed for a user-friendly book to both clarify your own thoughts about global warming and to recommend to those acquaintances, friends, relatives, and colleagues who are either indifferent to climate change or think it's a bunch of tree-hugging hooey. Believe me, Dire Predictions is the book we've been waiting for. I rarely gush in the reviews I write. But I'm gushing in this one.

Authors Michael Mann and Lee Kump, the former a weather scientist and the latter a geoscientist, have put together a primer on global warming drawn from IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports that offers incredibly helpful illustrations and graphs, beautiful photographs, and informative, to the point text. The explanations are concise, typically a single topic to a page fold, and they focus on exactly the kinds of questions and issues that most of us have wondered about--for example, Is our atmosphere really warming?; How to build a climate model; Back to the future: Deep time holds clues to climate change; Fingerprints distinguish human and natural impacts on climage; Why is it called greenhouse effect? and Couldn't the increase in atmosphere CO2 be the result of natural cycles?

The book is divided into 5 parts:

1. Climate Change Basics
2. Projections of Future Climate Change
3. Impacts of Climate Change
4. Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change
5. Solving Global Warming

One of the best features of the Mann and Kump's approach is that they don't hesitate to respond directly to the "debunkers" of global warming that have become popular of late.

A wonderful book, exactly the sort of popular science approach that citizens, community activists, public policy makers, and presidential candidates need to get clear on the facts and implications of global warming. Highly recommended. Six stars.

46 of 56 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars great concept July 24, 2008

By David Appell

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love the concept behind this book: an "illustrated" guide instead of another long text of prose about global warming. It has tons of charts and graphs and colorful pictures, so you learn the field in a new way -- less abstractly, more intuitively. Slightly below a Scientific American-level. This book would be great for someone who wants to understand climate change, but doesn't have the background (or patience) to read a 300 page book on it. Plus it would be great for kids 7th grade and up.

I've read hundreds of books and articles and papers on climate change, and yet I still learn things from nearly every page in the book, no matter where in it I start.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Game, Set, Match January 24, 2010

By R. Olson

Format:Paperback

This book could easily be titled, "A Guide to Help Climate Skeptics Understand Why They are Wrong." It's written, not in a dull, didactic, "here are the facts," manner, but more as a presentation of the arguments in which the standard questions from the other side are addressed as major section headings, such as, "Couldn't the increase in carbon dioxide be the result of natural cycles?."

Pretty much the bottom line conclusion of the book is presented in large, bold font near the end of first section where the authors say that if we don't do something to change our ways, the atmospheric carbon dioxide level will exceed "anything experienced on earth for over 50 million years." Could the stakes be laid out any more clearly?

The tables need to be turned on the climate skeptics -- it's time for the burden of proof to be placed upon their shoulders -- as in, you folks need to prove to us that it's possible to alter the atmosphere so significantly and NOT have something undesirable happen.

The structure of the book is very simple and powerful. In five nicely color-coded sections they lay out the basics of the problem, what the science predicts will happen, and how to avoid or cope with it. The style of writing is efficient, direct, to the point, and periodically snappy, such as asking, "Is it time to sell that beach house?"

The overall look of the book is almost as VISUAL as a slide show. This is a book that is perfect for undergraduates, the general public, and pretty much everyone willing to put their trust in science rather than politics.