Product Description
Written from a multidisciplinary perspective by one of the field’s preeminent researcher/instructors, Earth’s Climate: Past and Future became a classroom favorite by providing an expert summary of climate change past, present, and future. The text worked equally well as either a nonmajors introduction to Earth system science or climate change, or as an upper-undergraduate-level overview of the processes and techniques in climate science.The new edition incorporates coverage of climatological events and research discoveries in the seven years since the first edition, most importantly the now broadly accepted understanding that humans play a major role in warming the planet. It also incorporates changes designed to make the material more accessible to an introductory-level audience.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 6 reviews)

an excellent introduction to paleoclimatology by Dr. M. Rouault (Cape Town, South Africa)

5 Stars
December 12, 2008
Extremelly well illustrated, this book tackle all aspects of paleoclimatology. I will definitively use it a textbook for our students.

No Doubts by James Safranek (Steinbeck Country)

5 Stars
August 19, 2008
A very good introduction to Quaternary paleoclimatology and projections of things to come. The older edition that I own leaves the question of AGW somewhat open. The latest edition appears to indicate Ruddiman's acceptance of the latest IPCC findings. Recommended for upper division geography and earth science students who've mastered basic meteorology and/or oceanography.

Superb Book on Paleoclimatology! by Scott A. Mandia (Long Island, NY)

5 Stars
April 03, 2008
I am a community college professor who uses this text. The course is designed for non-science majors who need a lab science elective to satisfy their liberal arts degree. The climate course that I teach is a paleoclimatology course which is primarily about the forces that have caused climate and climate change over the past 300 million years. My course differs from the more traditional method of teaching climate (typically an "atmospheric science" course for the first half of the course followed by some climate change materials in the second half.) The Ruddiman book is outstanding and I will highlight the pros and cons below but the pros greatly outweigh the cons: Pros: 1) Extremely well-written 2) Ruddiman uses the scientific method to build his topics. He begins with a hypothesis, explores the data, and then discusses if the hypothesis is valid or not. I love this style because it shows students how scientists approach problems and possible solutions. 3) Superb illustrations Cons: 1) Really a two-semester text. There is no way that students can do more than 10-12 chapters per semester. 2) Although appropriate for college-level, this text will read at a higher level than other books typically used in non-majors courses. Bottom line: this is simply the best climate book I have reviewed to date for community college non-major students and I have reviewed many over the last 20 years. [...]

An excellent introduction of complex processes. by Jacquelyn Gill (Madison, WI)

5 Stars
January 22, 2006
This textbook was assigned for a mid-level course on climatic environments of the past, with a focus on the Quaternary Period. As a graduate student with an ecology undergraduate degree currently studying Quaternary vegetation dynamics, I found this to be an excellent introduction for those without a background in climatology while still having a lot to offer more advanced students. The book itself does not focus merely on the Quaternary, but on the general climatic history of the earth and the dynamic processes that govern it. Ruddiman gives a full treatment of the various scales of variability (tectonic-scale, orbital-scale, millenial, and finally historical and future). He includes a thorough treatment of various paleoclimate proxy methods, the processes of internal and external climate forcing, and gives a geological context for the current trends in climate change. One of the most valuable aspects of this textbook are the excellent illustrations, which are concise and consistent throughout. These graphics make a variety of potentially confusing or complex processes seem much simpler and more approachable, and are superior to other treatments of the same topics I've seen in other textbooks. Each chapter has suggestions for additional readings, key terms, and review questions, making this an excellent resource for students. The work is comparatively up-to-date, and includes current issues and debates in paleoclimate studies as well as references to various contemporary projects, groups, and researchers. The writing style is succinct and clear, and follows an intuitive progression. More advanced students will find it easy to find the information they need without slogging through elementary readings. All in all this is an excellent reference for anyone interested in studying climate dynamics in order to understand current trends. Beginning or advanced students, professionals looking to expand their range of knowledge, and the serious inquirer with an advanced high school background in physical science will all find something valuable in this text. My only wish is that the book, now five years old, be updated to include the most recent advanvements in the field.

A long-awaited textbook...... by Dario Ventra (Utrecht, Netherlands)

5 Stars
May 17, 2002
I read this book twice, and wished I had had something like this available to me a few years ago, when I started venturing out into the unnumbered feedback loops, geochemical vagaries and regional idiosyncracies of Quaternary paleoclimatology, trying to form a general picture of it all. But this text isn't just about the Quaternary, mind you, this is a complete introduction to the main issues in Earth's climatology. That it's mainly PALEOclimatology is unavoidable, since in my opinion "present climatology" is like a nonsense... Climate is an averaged evaluation of regional or global meteorological parameters through time, and the "present" is always too short for such an evaluation. Insight on climate evolution is only gained looking back in time, and projecting our analyses to an immediate future, so it's a science strictly dependent on timescales and perspectives... What we can tentatively tell about our climatic future is still too uncertain, but what was in the past is still available to inform and inspire us to further research, that's why Ruddiman's work is mainly about understanding what happened in the past... My cheap philosophy aside, I think the author's aim was to introduce the subject from the basics, at a simplified level, in order to teach what kind of processes and interactions are involved in determining Earth's climate and its variability, without having inexperienced readers bogged down into technicalities of all sorts and all together (the necessary way of scientific articles delving deeper into any one very specific topic!). Hypotheses, problems and events are introduced gradually, with a captivating detective-like style, and the telescopic time-perspective (from longer geotectonic time-scales all the way down to centennial and decadal patterns and phenomena, dutifully lingering upon the Milankovic pacemaker) is just what's needed to have the right feeling brought home to students of how the Earth system evolves.. Details of this and that research threads are omitted to aid understanding of the general picture. Bibliographic references provide other information sources for those interested in more.. My own perplexity is on the second chapter: I doubt that such a quick overview of the workings of atmosphere and oceans is enough for those students that never touched any textbooks of meteorology or oceanography. A chapter twice as long would be more informative, I guess making those processes clearer at the outset of the journey would make several students more confident and help them grasp more of what will follow. I know the book is bulky enough already, but more pages and explanations need to be added to the second chapter for teaching's sake... I have to disagree with the previous reviewer's negativity.. This is an introductory textbook, if any (paleo)climatologist's views had to be included, an encyclopedia would hardly be enough room for all of them!! The last two chapters, on global warming and future climate variability, are the best example of Ruddiman's balance and caution in explaining hypotheses, alternatives, possible fallacies and biases of sorts. As to the reviewer's question, "Who couldn't get a five-star rating discussing climate change and global warming with such a leitmotif?", I invite him to read my review of W.J.Burroughs' "Climate Change: a Multidisciplinary Approach" on the Amazon.co.uk website... I really hope to see a second edition of Ruddiman's work in the next years, when times will be ripe for exciting updates and more hypotheses to tell...

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate by William F. Ruddiman (Author) The impact on climate from 200 years of industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but did humankind's active involvement in climate change really begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed? William Ruddiman's provocative new book argues that humans have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years--as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture. The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming on...
	The Rough Guide to Climate Change, 2nd Edition by Robert Henson (Author) The Rough Guide to Climate Change gives the complete picture of the single biggest issue facing the planet. Cutting a swathe through scientific research and political debate, this completely updated 2nd edition lays out the facts and assesses the options- global and personal- for dealing with the threat of a warming world. The guide looks at the evolution of our atmosphere over the last 4.5 billion years and what computer simulations of climate change reveal about our past, present, and future....
	Paleoclimatology, Volume 68, Second Edition: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary (International Geophysics) by Raymond S. Bradley (Author) Raymond S. Bradley provides his readers with a comprehensive and up-to-date review of all of the important methods used in paleoclimatic reconstruction, dating and paleoclimate modeling. Two comprehensive chapters on dating methods provide the foundation for all paleoclimatic studies and are followed by up-to-date coverage of ice core research, continental geological and biological records, pollen analysis, radiocarbon dating, tree rings and historical records. New methods using alkenones in...
	The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future by Richard B. Alley (Author) Richard Alley, one of the world's leading climate researchers, tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. In the 1990s he and his colleagues made headlines with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years. Here Alley offers the first popular account of the wildly fluctuating climate that characterized most of prehistory--long deep freezes alternating...
	Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It by Wallace S. Broecker (Author), Robert Kunzig (Author) The product of a unique collaboration between a pioneering earth scientist and an award-winning science writer, Fixing Climate takes an unconventional approach to the problem of global warming—and offers a possible solution. Hailed by his colleagues as “one of the our greatest living geoscientists,” Wallace S. Broecker, a longtime researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, warned about the possible consequences of global warming decades before it became a...