Experimenting on a Small Planet

the long version

This book is an introduction to climate science and global change. It includes the scientific background in physics, chemistry and biology. The science chapters are interleaved with biographical material including personal reminiscences. The science chapters discuss the history of development of ideas in geology, the discovery of Earth’s very different climates in the distant past, and the climate oscillations of the ice ages. Special treatment is given to past warm climates. The role of greenhouse gases in controlling Earth’s climate, along with a discussion of the associated physics. It develops the idea that humans have played a role in climate change throughout the past few millennia, rather than just since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It concludes by introducing the idea that the result of the present perturbation may be the transition to an ice-free warm world.