The Discovery of Global Warming (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine)
The Discovery of Global Warming (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine) – Review
This fairly small volume is an notable addition to the review of global warming. The book, clearly understood by the average usually lay reader, recounts the annals of climate change research leading in about 1896. I should point out that the reader will not take away a reasonably detailed understanding of global warming science from the book. That is not its purpose. You do learn some aspects of the science included, but essentially you learn how our present day aspect of climate change occured about. Our understanding of our climate chugged along at a fairly gradual rate over the last 108 years for several reasons. A main problem was the essential need for the interest of a large range of technical specialties. In order to advance the study we have desperately needed the record of physicists, oceanographers, geologists, chemists, meteorologists and even botanists. It is rare that such a different sort of scientists are desperately needed for an advance in a specific area. Weart describes how all of these researchers began working together in their search for answers to international climate change. The second main difficulty was the lack of specific technologies necessary to achieve significant progress. Only recently have we had computers fast enough to process the data in climate modeling programs. Technological advances also had to be usually made in the equipment desperately needed to take kilometers deep core samples from ice and other strata. Researchers had to learn the hard way that you can’t still breathe on ice cores as your breath will contaminate the sample. Weart brings us up to the present and discusses the parts of journalism and politics in advancing and often hindering the legislative support for the suggestions of scientists. The author has no doubt that our planet is warming up, and notes that literally thousands of scientists now support this conclusion. Again, if you are trying to learn the science basics of this topic, you will need a companion volume to this one for that material. Here’s a few you might consider: 1.The No-nonsense guide to Climate Change, by Dinyar Godrej 2. Atmosphere, Climate and Change by Thomas Gredel and Paul Crutzen 3. Climate Change by William James Burroughs 4.Is the Temperature Rising? By S. George Philander