Global Warming - Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology (Springer Praxis Books / Environmental Sciences) [Hardcover]

Marcel Leroux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2005 | ISBN-10: 354023909X | ISBN-13: 978-3540239093 | Edition: 1

This book seeks to separate fact from fiction in the global-warming debate. The author begins by describing the history of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other conferences, and their dire predictions on global temperatures, rainfall, weather and climate, while highlighting confusion and sensationalism media reports. He then lays out the "heretical" scientific case of the sizable skeptical scientific community who challenge the accepted wisdom.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Aus den Rezensionen: "… Als Professor für Klimatologie … ging Leroux dieser Entdeckung nach, indem er eine Vielzahl von Satellitenphotos auswertete. … Der … Klimatologe wirft seinen Zunftkollegen in einer ... grundlegenden Auseinandersetzung mit der These von der ‘Globalen Erwärmung‘ vor, … überkommene Vorstellungen von den Triebkräften des Wettergeschehens kritisch in Frage zu stellen …Demgegenüber hat Leroux Ansatz, … den Vorteil, die seit den 70er Jahren ohne Zweifel wachsende Zahl von Wetterextremen nachprüfbar erklären zu können …" (Edgar Gärtner, in: Schweizer Monatshefte Zeitschrift für Politik Wirtschaft Kultur, 2006, Vol. 86, Issue 11-12, S. 57 f.)

From the Back Cover

To date, definitive answers to questions about ultimate causes and effects of global warming remain elusive. In Global Warming - Myth or Reality? . Marcel Leroux seeks to separate fact from fiction and lays out the scientific cause of the sizable sceptical scientific community that challenges the accepted wisdom. The book begins with a review of the dire predictions for climate trends, followed by a discussion of the main conclusions of the three reports issued by the Intergovernmentall Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It then reviews the predictions made at the time about global temperatures, rainfall, weather and climate, whilst highlighting the mounting confusion and sensationalism of reports in the media. Lreoux takes a hard and dispassionate look at the reality of the greenhouse effect, the "evidence" from climate models, and the limitations of those models. He then postulates alternative causes of climate change and analyses the trends for global temperatures, rainfall patterns, dynmaics of weather and sea level. He argues that the case for global warming is based on climatology which, with its insufficiencies in the understanding and explanation of weather phenomena do not support this prediction. Leroux highlights a number of priorities that climatologists could consider in order to understand the processes of climate change, integrate them into deterministic climate models, and predict accurately changes of climate of the near future.  The most urgent priority for climatology, the author believes , is to leave the IPCC in order that the discipline remains neutral and returns to the pursuit of its proper ends.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 536 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (August 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 354023909X
• ISBN-13: 978-3540239093
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Analysis not Rhetoric, January 3, 2007

By 

Duke "Duke" (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Global Warming - Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology (Springer Praxis Books / Environmental Sciences) (Hardcover)

Aside from the first four chapters (which provide an excellent, if strident, history of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), this is a thorough text book on climate analysis for the layman. It develops a cogent theory of how the atmosphere works and explains each of the issues involved from the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, the tilt of the poles, the impact of the solar cycle, to a detailed look at the defects in climate modeling and how one might expect the atmosphere to react if, indeed, the earth were warming or cooling. Great care is taken to explain the impact of each of the green house gases (including the most significant, water vapor, and how its omission from IPCC studies impacts the conclusions). Not light reading, but well worth the effort.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Critique of Alarmist Theories, April 6, 2008

By 

Fearless Bear "Fearless Bear" (Chicagoland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Global Warming - Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology (Springer Praxis Books / Environmental Sciences) (Hardcover)

This is a comprehensive and detailed review of what the author, who heads a French University atmospheric science department, views as the co-option and corruption of good atmospheric science by political influence. Leroux not only shows specific faults with various assertions of global warming alarmists, but he puts his criticism in context with discussions of a variety of phenomena. He demonstrates multiple misstatements of past events by people asserting that radiative forcing from human activity has major influence on the earth's climate. He demonstrates the frailty and simplistic nature of existing "models", and offers some interesting theory of his own on how earth's climate and weather work. Do not read this book if you want a short or easy summary of evidence (for that, look up the NIPCC report (Singer ed.) in early March 2008). However, if you want a comprehensive look at the complexity of atmoshperic and meteorologic science and climate change, this book is truly excellent.

24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST read., August 2, 2007

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villegem "villegem" (canada) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Global Warming - Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology (Springer Praxis Books / Environmental Sciences) (Hardcover)

Anyone who claim having an opinion on the issue of Anthropogenic Global Warming cannot ignore this book. This is no journalist romanced account nor a guru dire predictions. This is a scientific demonstration based on observations and accute scientific understanding and reasonning. It should be in every school library and science teachers should have read it answer students' question with knowledge. True it is not light reading but there is no other way to explain the fundamentals of atmospheric circulation, its relation to climates and expose the perversions of cooky cutter science. Should you read one book, this one is the one.