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With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change

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Fred Pearce is a journalist with 'New Scientist' magazine who has been writing about climate change since the 1980s. With a background writing for a popular science magazine he is naturally skilled at quickly distilling complex science into a readable and understandable narrative for the educated lay reader and placing things in the big picture. But he is also grounded and objective, saying in the Introduction "I am a skeptical environmentalist" but that "climate change is different.. the more I learn.. the more scared I get.. because this story adds up."

Pearce goes through a checklist of major concerns scientists are looking at: Melting ice in Greenland and the Arctic. Glaciological "monsters" lurking in Pine Island Bay and Totten glacier. The stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet. El Nino getting stuck, trigger droughts or super-storms. The Amazon rain forest disappearing due to drought or fire. The acidification of the oceans. Damage to the atmospheric hydroxyl smog cleaning system. Influences of the stratosphere on global warming. Methane releases from melting arctic bogs. The North Atlantic conveyor belt shutdown. Frozen undersea methane clathrates. The impact of soot. The unknown factor of clouds. The many ways the sun and the earths orbit effects climate change. And much more.

In addition he covers a bit of history including a history of the debate between the the polar and tropical camps on what is the driver of climate change. His explanation of El Nino was simple yet it finally made sense to me how it works and why it is so important.

Interleaved throughout is the common narrative that climate is not a steady beast, but an unpredictable "drunk", who prodded a little can go off in a sudden unexpected bender. This is an excellent overview that is easy to read, fascinating, well written roller-coaster of ideas and insights.

Type I climate change is gradual and follows the graphs of most climate modelers; Type II is much more abrupt and results from crossing hidden "tipping points." Pearce explains what some of these tipping points in a credible and balanced manner.

Charles Keeling began collecting CO2 data at the top of Mauna Loa (14,000 feet) in 1958 (315 ppm), 320 in 1965, 331 in 1975, and 380 now - the level is increasing at an accelerating rate. Nineteen of the twenty warmest years have occurred since 1980, and the five warmest years all since 1998. Thus, credible evidence indicates that global problem is real, and getting worse.

Skeptics claim, however, that weather balloon data do not reveal a daytime warming trend. Pearce explains this is most likely because until recently the thermometers used read too high because they were not shielded from UV rays; further, balloon night-time readings have risen during the same period. Others suggest that warming data are due to urban "heat islands" - on the other hand, the greatest increases are in the polar and oceanic areas, and the "heat island" effect are not affected by windy weather. Another possible explanation is sunspots - data from 1850 onward correlates well with temperature increases, UNTIL 1980 when sunspot activity began declining while warming continued. Finally, a review of almost 1,000 peer-reviewed papers on climate change published between 1993 and 2003 found an almost universal consensus that global warming exists.

"With Speed and Violence" then goes on to review potential tipping points. The Amazon rainforest is the largest living reservoir of CO2 on the earth's land surface - its trees contain 17 billion tons of carbon and its soil perhaps as much again. Thus, trees and soil together contain the equivalent of about 20 years' of man-made emissions from burning fossil fuels. However, an experiment found that while the forest could handle two years of drought, after that the trees began dying, falling down to rot and release CO2. After this occurred the exposed land also released about 75% of its CO2. Current climate change already risks bringing drought to a number of areas in the world. Forests have been growing faster in various areas of the world due to increased CO2, but lately this has reversed due to droughts in various areas.

At least half the world's tropical peat swamps (up to 60 feet deep) are on the Indonesian islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and West Papua. They contain perhaps 50 billion tons of carbon. Wildfires there in '97-'98 released up to 40% of all man-made emissions; these fires are not rare as farmers frequently set them to clear land. Some of the fires continue underground in the deep peat deposits.

As warming proceeds to beyond the Arctic tree line, carbon stored in thick layers of permanently frozen soil (permafrost) comprised of thousands of years' accumulation of dead lichen, moss, etc. that never rotted before freezing becomes at risk for release. The Siberian peat bog covers 400 square miles, and as it begins to thaw, the peat decomposes into swamps and lakes devoid of oxygen. The result is methane production - a gas that has a 100X greater global warming impact than CO2.

Our oceans contain about 50X the CO2 residing in the atmosphere. Water's ability to retain CO2, however, decreases with warming. And then there is the possible methane clathrates (thought to have been created by microbes decaying at the bottom of the ocean) - some scientists are concerned that global warming, combined with cracks in the ocean floor, will release enormous amounts of methane from this source.

Pearce's prognosis is that of uncertainty and new surprises. He believes that our aim must be to avoid crossing thresholds where irreversible change occurs (eg. shutting off the Gulf Stream) - especially changes that trigger further warming. He sees the Kyoto targets as small compared with the cuts that eventually will be needed.

Currently the U.S. and Australia emit about 5.5 tons of carbon/year/citizen, Europeans average about 3, China about 1, and India less than 0.5. Our top priority should be energy efficiency, followed by increased use of nuclear, solar, and wind energy. Estimated total cost to stop global warming - about $8 trillion.

Researchers in human-caused climate change have fallen into two camps. Even though all the scientists in the field have shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Earth's climate is changing, one camp believes that changes will be gradual, while the other camp is concerned about abrupt cataclysmic changes that will bring us the worst horrors of global warming all at once. In other words, climate change theorists have largely broken into the "gradualism" vs. "catastrophism" camps, not unlike their counterparts in the sciences of evolution or geology. This book presents the latest scientific advances in the catastrophist school, and Pearce writes in a very readable style about some truly startling evidence. For instance, the melting icecaps could add vast amounts of cold and fresh water to the warm and salty ocean, possibly leading to an abrupt deactivation of the crucial Gulf Stream. Such global warming-related events would not be gradual, and precise tipping points could be reached that would have sudden and very catastrophic effects around the world.

But while much of the material in this book is quite fascinating for the concerned citizen, and would probably be a shock to the politicized skeptic, there is a real problem with Pearce's presentation style. Pearce is a magazine writer, and his skill in creating short hard-hitting articles does not translate well into book form. Here, an avalanche of different scientific topics zoom by in brief chapters averaging about five pages in length, resulting in a lot of introductions but very little in-depth analysis or closure. Meanwhile, the myriad topics eventually drift into increasingly conjectural theories and historical coverage of weather-related natural disasters, all of which drift away from the main topic of human-caused climate change. Most importantly, the (inadvertent) result of this disjointed presentation style is a portrayal of climate change science as an unruly mass of infighting and contradictions, with the catastrophists arguing with each other and with the gradualists. This will not help in presenting a united front to right-wing deniers. This book is still a very useful source of solid evidence on the real phenomenon of climate change, but the catastrophist school will have to wait for a true manifesto. [~doomsdayer520~]

This is book number 5 or 6 for me on climate change and I think so far this is the best. This is the most readable, covers a large range of climate topics, and at the same time holds your interest. Many books on this subject are a bit of a chore to read while this is hard to put down.

As mentioned in previous reviews the chapters are a somewhat short and the detail is not exhausting but Pearce holds your attention and covers all the bases. For example I've known about El Nino for years but have not seen it explained so clearly and succinctly as Pearce did in two short paragraphs as well as how it relates to climate change.

There are many topics explored here that are left out in other books such as the Arctic Oscillation, the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode, the effect of desertification in Africa on the climate of the Amazon, the Stratospheric cooling, the 1,500 year cycle and much more.

The arguments for solar forcing of climate change are presented with the evidence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing along with all current controversy and discussion as well as the concerns for dramatic vs. gradual climate change. This is fascinating and important,Pearce has the format here to make it a good read for anyone.

Once, climate was seen like a sedate matron, ambling along at a measured pace. According to Fred Pearce, the climate is more like a drunk, lurching from one place to another in sporadic, unpredictable lunges. Rapid climate change was once considered a local phenomenon. Older, unprepared civilisations in one region staggered under shifts of weather, collapsing in the heat, but easily replaced by more efficient neighbours. Research has shown, argues Pearce, that the entire globe is interconnected through complex patterns. Even the starting points of climate changes are hidden in the mists of time. Until today. Now it's the byproducts of our society that are prompting the changes. How drastic these may be and where the changes will be most severe is the subject of this excellent, if very frightening account.

Fred Pearce has been in the climate investigation reporting business for nearly twenty years. He knows the players and he understands their work. His intimate knowledge of their views and the science behind those outlooks provide a sound foundation for his summation of how climate change is occurring. And it is occurring, he argues. It's happening so fast that he can confidently assert that this is the last eneration that will enjoy anything like climate stability. That lurching drunk is more powerful and less predictable than previously imagined.

With his long experience to buttress his presentation, Pearce covers all the bases. Moving from polar ice through ocean currents to wind patterns, he provides a thorough examination of the issues and the people studying them. The eminent Wally Broecker, who proposed the Great Ocean Conveyor circulating polar water around the globe is carefully described. Pearce doesn't want to invoke Broecker's ire over a mis-statement. Lonnie Thompson, who has likely spent more time above 6000 metres altitude than any other lowlander alive, offers his critique of Broecker's model as the initiator of climate change. These men are the elder statesmen of climate investigation. The journalist has met them all, but he also introduces us to the newcomers in the field. Peter deMenocal is continuing the work of Gerard Bond on solar pulses of energy, while Mike Mann's "hockey stick" graph of temperature increase updated Charles Keeling's earlier records on carbon dioxide increase rates. In a few cases, the later worker has almost eclipsed his forbear as Milutin Milankovich is the name associated with relating climate with Earth's orbital shifts instead of that of James Croll, the crofter's son who worked that out in the late 19th Century.

New minds, asking new questions and probing with modern instruments, have produced fresh viewpoints on climate change. The most significant pattern among those views is that major climate change is in the offing. It will be likely very soon and very abrupt. Warming air and warming seas are providing lubricant for the ice caps in Greenland and the Antartic. Will these ice mountains soon slide into their neighbouring oceans? El Nino, the enigmatic countervailing wind in the Pacific Ocean is becoming more frequent in its occurrences. Are we headed for a permanent state of monsoon-inhibiting forces? Neither simple nor immediate answers are availble to answer those questions, as Pearce and his interviewees admit. That circumstance gives the climate sceptics a wedge to challenge the whole idea of climate change as a serious threat. The author draws on his resources to dismiss that objection, asserting that even the resistance to anthropogenic causes of today's climate disruptions no longer is tenable.

For Pearce, the issue isn't whether climate change is occurring - it is, and we are the cause - but rather how rapidly it will develop into a clearly visible threat. It's not important who's leading the dance, the Poles or the Tropics, it's important that we recognise that threatening change is taking place now. Since the impact is already apparent, we must undertake efforts to reduce the effects and protect ourselves. We have already created "Another Planet" by the introduction of massive use of fossil fuels. Our children will be living on that orb, and we must help safeguard their future. He adopts a list of solutions originally proposed by Robert Socolow of Princeton University. These "wedges" - so called because they will start as minimal changes, but grow in strength and effectiveness with the passage of time - will reduce the load of carbon we're placing into the environment and let us return to a more stable climate condition. If the Earth needs an AA to survive, it is these wedges that will provide the therapy. The time to apply the therapy, however, is NOW. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

There's a reason why anthropogenic climate change, or human-caused global warming, has been very much in the news for years. No other field of science makes such sobering predictions of what the world could be like in the near future if humans continue to pollute the earth's atmosphere with greenhouse gases. The idea of global warming is not universally believed, of course. The fact that it is not is a great example of the scientific method at work. Theories must withstand the most rigorous and skeptical scrutiny before they are widely accepted as correct. The science of global warming gets stronger every day, though, and it is instructive to note that most skeptics are employed by oil, gas and chemical companies, and have huge financial stakes in playing down the consequences of the observations of earth's changing climate that even they cannot deny.

Global warming can seem to be a stately, gradual, incremental process that will not have big impacts on life as we know it for centuries. After all, who can get excited about an increase in the earth's average temperature of a couple of degrees? Who cares if sea levels rise a few inches? Would anyone even notice such small changes? If this is what you think, you need to read "With Speed and Violence." Author Fred Pearce presents compelling, well-documented evidence that global warming can profoundly alter the earth's climate on time scales of just a few years, or, in some really scary cases, in the space of a single season. Some of the possibilities he discusses make "The Day After Tomorrow" seem like a science-fiction disaster epic or a documentary about the end of the world as we know it.

This is not fringe science or sensationalistic journalism. "With Speed and Violence" reports the latest mainstream research (with references, so you can check out the peer-reviewed papers yourself if you want to) about "tipping points" in the earth's climatic system. These points are certain conditions of temperatures, greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean salinity, atmospheric aerosols, etc., that act like "on-off" switches, and can drastically change the climate very quickly if they are flipped. Here's just one example. In March 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf, a huge chunk of ice as big as Luxembourg and 650 feet thick, broke away from the coast of Antarctica and shattered to pieces. Its dramatic demise was almost certainly caused by air and water temperatures that had been warming gradually for almost 50 years. When Larsen B broke up, it did not itself have any effect on sea levels, because it was already floating (just as ice melting in a glass does not raise the water level). But it acted like a cork in a wine bottle for inland glaciers behind it. Now that Larsen B is not there to hold them back, these glaciers are flowing to the sea eight times faster than when the shelf was in place, and these glaciers DO raise sea levels when they calve icebergs into the water. There is enough ice in these now-released "speeding" glaciers to raise sea levels by nearly 20 feet. Thus can a local event have severe global consequences. A 20-foot sea level rise would flood coastal areas worldwide. Worse, there's no going back from a tipping point. We can't reassemble Larsen B and glue it back onto Antarctica. Once it's gone, it's gone, and everything changes.

"With Speed and Violence" covers scores of these potential "tipping points." Mr. Pearce presents each one in a very balanced manner, clearly not that of a wild-eyed fanatic. They will not all happen, of course, but even if just a few do, human society on earth could change beyond recognition. Drastic climate changes have happened before in the earth's history, and will certainly happen again. But, with our ongoing reckless consumption of fossil fuels, we seem determined to do everything we can to make the next climate cycle as fast, violent and hostile as possible. Can we afford to risk triggering conditions "beyond which there is no redemption," as the nation's top climate modeler warned in 2005? I heartily agree with Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute: "If you can read only one book on climate change, this is it." Most highly recommended. Read it, think about it and then take action before its too late.

This is the most important book I've ever read. Each chapter is about a climate scientist's work and thinking, covering about 25 researchers. The climatic record in glacial ice cores, sea floor sediment cores, rocks and tree rings shows that climate has changed drastically in very short time periods in the past. Humans are perturbing the system beyond anything that has happened for millions of years. No one knows what the climate system will do, but many possible scenarios are cataclysmic and could happen soon. This book is authoritative and fully believable; it's about Nobel Prize winners and top-flight scientists, not politicians and hacks. Before I had read half of this book I went and bought a Toyota Prius, switched my home to a green electric utility, installed 100% compact florescent bulbs in my home and bought the most efficient laundry appliances available. If you like science, it's also a fascinating read.

A very thorough primer and review of history, current consensus, and disagreements on climate change. I thought the author took a very balanced view, being careful to include dissenting opinions on various aspects of cimate change. The chilling conclsion, though, is that disagreements among climate scientists are on the level of which machanisms are most important, which ones take the lead and which follow, and the magnitude of expected change. The is no real disagreement on the fact that the earth's climate is changing rapidly, that there are tipping points which when crossed will produce irrevocable and drastic changes in climete, and that man made pollution is a major contributor to this change.

Best book I have read on Global Warming (so far: as of summer 2008) and I have read more than a few good ones. This is the most up to date, comprehensive review of every significant aspect of global warming for the general public that I have read. All that you need to know and well organized review of a very complicated subject. This is where I would begin. It emphasizes the abrupt changes that are likely to occur in all weather predictions. Does NOT cover the intricacies of computer modeling. It does NOT cover the findings from the 4th IPCC but it covers the ground up to that point thoroughly. Pearce is the environmental writer for New Scientist and I would go to his articles for the latest since the publication of this book. My only qualms is that for a book of this quality the publisher should pull out all stops for the next edition and include graphs and maps and an annotated bibliography for those wishing to do further study without necessarily going to the original sources. I expect this could become the standard reference for high school and college intro courses.

Pearce's book is a nice, readable encapsulation of current climate change indicators and should be on the reading list of everyone concerned with global warming and its potential (and probable) impacts.

I have two problems with the book. For one, the chapter titles are a little too cutesy (The Pulse, Hydroxyl Holiday, etc.) in contrast with the dire overall message of the book. But, more importantly, there is not one graph or figure in the entire text, despite the author's emphasis on historic global temperature fluctuations, the Arctic/Atlantic Conveyor, and the Keeling curve (atmospheric carbon dioxide increase). Climate change statistics need graphs to adequately convey their meaning, and this oversight significantly impairs the book's effectiveness.