Customer Reviews

The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate (Science Essentials)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This concise (180-page), clearly-written book is an excellent first book on climate science for the general audience, generally not requiring knowledge beyond that of high school.

Since climate science is often befogged by climate anti-science articles and books, before buying a book, it is helpful to check the author before buying. Does the author have a sustained track record of publishing relevant articles in *peer-reviewed science journals*, is still doing so, and whose results get referenced and used by other working scientists? Nothing else really counts for much, in science.

In Archer's case, this is easy:

go to Google Scholar, enter:
David Archer carbon

Hint: serious expert.

Of the 50 or so books I own that discuss climate, this has jumped into the small group I recommend to people who ask "where should I start?"

I usually tell them to read a few books first to build a coherent science knowledge base, before spending much time on blogs and websites. It is worth reading several different treatments for comparison, contrast and complementary emphases.

My starter kit of generally-accessible climate science books is now:

1) This book.

2) William F. Ruddiman, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum - How Humans Took Control of Climate (2005)

3) Michael E. Mann, Lee R. Kump, Dire Predictions - The illustrated guide to the findings of the IPCC (2008)

You can buy all 3 for less than $50.

Archer's book seems scientifically impeccable but also targeted at those who don't know much about the basic science of climate. He repeats important statements in different chapters, for example, to emphasize the stuff we really do know. The focus here is not short-term, but long-term effects of CO2, and he presents a strong case that the impact of some of our human emissions will be there for almost as long as we expect our nuclear waste to stick around - several hundred thousand years. The big question is whether we stick to the 1000 Gt limit posed by all our oil and gas reserves and some coal, or go for the whole 3000-5000 Gt that coal and unconventional fossil fuels represent too - in that case in addition to the huge near-term climate spike, we have basically permanently changed the Earth (no more ice) for thousands of centuries into the future.

The book is relaxed in style, almost conversational sometimes, but nevertheless closely focused and packed with instructive detail. It was a pleasure for a non-scientist like me to read. He seems to understand how to illuminate processes for the general reader. For example, his chapter on the distribution of carbon in the atmosphere, the land and the ocean, and his explanation of the interactions between them in the carbon cycle, provided angles and information that pulled together satisfyingly the bits and pieces of my hesitant understanding. Similarly what he writes about the acidifying of the ocean by CO2 and the part calcium carbonate plays in slowly neutralising its effect is a model of lucidity. Other particularly helpful sequences include one on the relative strengths of four external agents of climate change - greenhouse gases, sulfur from burning coal, volcanic eruptions, changes in intensity of the sun. I appreciated his use of metaphor, particularly relating to the long period of glacial climate cycles over the past hundreds of thousands of years in which he envisages the ice sheets and CO2 "entwined in a feedback loop of cause and effect, like two figure skaters twirling and throwing each other around on the rink."

For now the carbon cycle is responding to the CO2 increase by inhaling into the ocean and high-latitude land surface, damping down the warming effect. But on the timescale of centuries and longer the lesson from the past is that this situation could reverse itself, and the warming planet could cause the natural carbon cycle to exhale CO2, amplifying the human-induced climate changes. Sea level rise is the most obvious long-term impact and there is no doubting the possible severity of this effect on human civilisation. It's a sober message, communicated gently.

On the back cover is a quote from James Hansen: "This is the best book about carbon dioxide and climate change that I have read." I was doubtful before reading it, but after reading it, I definitely agree. I think it is very well written and easy to read, especially for a complex subject like climate science.

You can get bits and pieces of this information from other books, but no book that I have read puts everything together like this one does. And I have read over 20 books dealing with global warming and climate science. Other books dwell too long on relatively insignificant (to me) details, such as the lives of the people who discovered certain key things, or they look at only a narrow part of the timeline. This book goes farther into the past and future than any other I've read.

For example, in other books or articles I have read vague statements about CO2 lasting a long time in the atmosphere. Sometimes they will say much of the CO2 we release now will still be in the atmosphere 50 or 100 years from now. But they usually don't say how much and never talk about longer periods. This book explains how oceans will absorb most of the excess CO2 (70-85%) over a period of roughly 300 years, and over a period of roughly 5,000 years CO2 reacting with CaCO3 will absorb roughly half of the remainder, and then weathering (reacting with igneous rocks) will absorb the rest over a period of about 400,000 years. The time scales depend on how much of each greenhouse gas is released by us and by positive feedbacks. For example, the reaction with CaCO3 could last between 2,000 and 10,000 years. Average global temperature will stay near its peak for roughly 1000 years and will take hundreds of thousands of years to return completely to normal.

Another example: I knew that there are climate cycles caused by different aspects of the earth's orbit, and I had read about other things that affect CO2 concentrations and global average temperature. But this book puts orbital cycles, geologic processes, and the melting and freezing of ice sheets and related feedbacks into context, showing how each operates of very different time scales.

If you want the most complete, concise (only about 175 pages), and clear explanation of climate science to date, this is the best book to get.

The Long Thaw is refreshingly free of political overtones, although it attempts to address the thorny issue of what climate change means to humans. The author does this by looking into what the past climate held for the earth, as our planet essentially flip-flopped between very cold and very warm (we have been living in an unprecedented stable period of temperate climate for the last 10,000 years or so).

Lots and lots of science here, but none too daunting, that go into detail on how natural warming and cooling occur, with descriptions of sunspot activities, cyclical orbital changes, ocean mixing behavior, volcanic activity, and yes, carbon dioxide levels. Because the author takes such a long view in the past (and future), he avoids most of the current politicization of global warming discussion. He clearly states that cyclical warming is natural and expected, but then makes a good case that our current warming is likely to be almost completely human-made, as we should be entering a new ice age.

The Long Thaw is quite original in its discussion on important aspects of climate change. It does not re-hash IPCC reports, or discuss alternate energy sources. It doesn't even really scare the reader into thinking climate change is bad - it just points out certain facts, such as an inevitable rise in sea level if carbon dioxide emissions continue along a business-as-usual path.

A few things I learned from the book:

Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, on average, a few hundred years, but some remains for thousands of years.

Very small changes in solar energy input or carbon dioxide levels can lead to very great changes in climate.

Carbon dioxide does not always cause global warming initially, but always makes it worse due to positive feedback cycles. (The warmer it gets, more CO2 is produced, and the more CO2 that is in the air, the warmer it gets.)

We can probably burn all the existing oil and natural gas without causing dangerous warming of the planet, but coal is ten times more abundant than oil and natural gas combined, and if we burn all the coal, the planet will most likely become extremely hot, with sea level rises of 30 feet and displacement of ten percent of the world's population. Sea level rise could be as great as 150 feet, flooding large parts of where people live.

Global warming naturally occurs throughout geological history. The difference this time is that warming appears to be occurring largely due to human burning of fossil fuels, and the change is more rapid than natural. Slow climate change can be adapted to, but it is not known if human societies have the ability to adapt to rapid climate change.

The cost to avoid dangerous climate interference is very small if we act now. Because carbon dioxide emission costs are currently not paid for (they are externalized to everyone, not just the producer), there is no incentive to reduce emissions.

A very well-written book, heavy on science and facts (as currently understood), and almost devoid of politics and alternate energy discussions.

This book is one of many now available dealing with the dire consequences of global warming. As with so many others it reviews the evidence, but quite succintly, with a minimum of unnecessary storylines. The author's interesting central thesis is that the global warming we will cause will forestall the ice age that was supposed to arrive (based on milankovich cycles) for probably the next 50,000 to 100,000 years, i.e. until the next interglacial warm period. The evidence he collects to bolster the argument is pretty convincing, basically amounting to calculations and modeling inputting the current forcings from greenhouse gases and insolation. I am not sure to what degree the trigger point for ice ages is the one he uses, that is northern hemisphere insolation decreases in summertime, I had thought this issue was pretty controversial. After reading the book it becomes difficult to hold a different point of view.

Another very important issue he goes over is the huge discrepancy between the historical record in sea level rises for a given temperature (hundreds of metres for a few degrees) versus the IPCC forecast (a few metres), which is certainly cause for alarm. He correctly points out that burning all oil and gas will produce a vastly different outcome than burning all fossil fuels, including coal.

So among all other climate change books, I think this one is definitely worth a look for its interesting thesis regarding the ice age that was due to come, that we will probably override.

"The Long Thaw" is a worthy sequel to Archer's previous book Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. Like the earlier text, it does not require more than a high-school level of science knowledge, but even those with advanced degrees in physics or chemistry can learn a lot from this broad-ranging survey of what the latest science knows about climate past, present, and future. This is the forth book I have read on Global Warming and climate change, and I found important new details and connections on almost every page.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I feel one should NOT choose this text as a person's first introduction to climate change. Most people's first goal in learning more about Global Warming is to thoroughly understand how we know humans are forcing rapid climate change right now, and they want to settle questions they have heard from climate skeptics. "Understanding the Forecast" or Global Warming: The Complete Briefing is better for that purpose. With this latter book's larger scope, Archer just briefly reviews current climate status before launching into a comprehensive exploration of the dramatic climatic events of the recent and distant past. He explains how this knowledge is helping answer the very important question of determining Earth's climate sensitivity: how much warming we will experience from the known climate forcing of rising CO2 and other human impacts. He uses a clear, concise, even humorous style to describe how the scientific evidence for this climatic history is drawn from many disciplines: glaciology, ocean chemistry, nuclear isotopic analysis, plant fossils, orbital mechanics, etc.

The book organizes climatic history by time-scale: century, millennial, glacial, and geologic. For each process and event he is very clear about what is known, what is speculative, and what is currently unknown. There is no space wasted refuting skeptics. Advanced undergraduates in the sciences looking toward graduate school can find considerable inspiration in this book for research opportunities.

I awarded only 4 stars only because the text could benefit from a more comprehensive index and perhaps a few more figures.

Archer gives a very unbiased straightforward account of how humans are in the process of changing the climate, and how that will affect this planet in this century, and for the next 100,000 years and beyond. Highly recommended for anyone looking to take their climate knowledge to the next level. It's not poetry, it is after all a scientific book, but Archer has a knack for getting you to keep turning the page.

The Long Thaw is not an easy read,some basic chemistry is helpful.
This book does not explain global warming in comfortable terms but it does explain how we got ourselves in this position and how long it will take to get back to a balanced system.
My main critisism is not having the charts on the same page as the references,this makes for a lot of page turning for the average reader.
Once the reader gets his or her head around science the book becomes a fascinating read,it won't scare you but it will,or should,make you aware of the pressure we as consumers, are putting on the system.

Archer has a gift at making complex science broadly understandable to the non-specialist. He is the preeminent specialist internationally on the issue of how carbon dioxide is cycled and removed from the atmosphere yet is able to explain these important and challenging issues in clear and simple terms. Anyone interested in climate change will be enriched by understanding the things that affect (and don't affect) the keystone gas, carbon dioxide, and there is no better place to do that than Archer's elegant book. The explanations of how ocean chemistry works to keep carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and change such things as the acidity of the ocean, are by far the clearest I've yet found.