Weather Books

Sable island, something out of a myth, it is thirty miles long and barely a mile wide at points, a smiley face shaped sand down off the coast of Nova Scotia, the graveyard of hundreds of ships. It is an eiry place, the kind of thing that should'nt exist, a natural marvel. It also has a herd of wild horses too boot.

This well written and fascinating history tells both the natural history of the island and the history of the wrecks and disasters around it. The island has shifted throughout history, since it is just a large sand bar, but this book brings it to life. For anyone interested in maritime history or the sea or natural phenomena, this is a wonderful reag.

Seth J. Frantzman

I've not read many books that have done such a respectable job in bundling the past, with its deadly history, the present, encapsulating research and discoveries, and the portents of the future. Often inhospitable, shifting, and ever dangerous we may be losing a piece of naval navigation lore and beauty to the relentless re-shaping by the ocean's fury and the, seemingly, irreversible onslaught of global warming that will eventually raise the ocean levels enough to shroud an historic place of incomprable beauty, fear, and destruction.

A must read for "The Perfect Storm" crowd, those interested in maritime lore, and everyone who can 'see' the effects of global warming. Enjoy!

Sable Island is undoubtably a fascinating subject, and so it must take an exceptional talent to write such a uniformly dull book about it. I bought this book on a whim hoping it would live up to the mild acclaim paraded on the cover, but I've had to force myself to finish it over the last few days. The previous reviewer is spot-on regarding the topics covered, but he fails to mention that De Villiers managed to leach almost every ounce of interest from them. The only spark of vitality comes from other writers who De Villiers quotes extensively and to his own detriment. The book also lacks any sense of organization and I found myself repeatedly puzzled over how the chapters, not to mention the contents of the chapters, were supposed to be tied together.

Authors Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle have produced an interesting book on the history of the Canadian island known as Sable Island. One could be forgiven I believe for thinking the place uninteresting and unworthy of a nearly 250 page book, the island described by some as a "desolate and barren and storm-swept sandbank in the North Atlantic." A crescent shaped island, with arms at east and west reaching to the north, the center bulging towards the south, it is the last lonely outpost of land between Canada and Europe (or Bermuda). Located a hundred miles south of Nova Scotia, it is a mere thirty miles long and at its widest less than a mile wide. A treeless place, it is an island of dunes - some bald, most covered in vegetation - and small ponds. Not a particularly high island, on the north beach dunes reach 85 feet in height, but on the south beach they are rarely more than 8 feet high, considerably shorter than some of the waves that occur during the many gales and storms of the region (though waves that rarely reach the island directly - at least at that height - owing to numerous sand bars miles out to sea around the island). What fame the island has is generally not from it scenery; located on major shipping lands, in an area that is frequently prone to storms and fog, and often not very visible far out to sea, the island has been described as the deadliest piece of real estate in Canada, with hundreds of wrecks having taking place in its waters, fully ten wrecks for every mile of coastline. An additional dangerous feature of the island are its spits located out to the east and west (washed over too often for much in the way of vegetation) which extend between four and nine miles out, as well as the submerged east and west bars, which extend out to eighteen miles - though a massive storm can radically change the size of the spits and bars overnight.

The authors spent a great deal of time discussing the geology of the island, introducing many concepts of that science. Sable Island is an island of sand - not rocks, shale, slate, boulders, or really much in the way of soil - as indeed the name Sable is the French word for sand. Geologists have pegged the island's age at around 15,000 years and they believe the island represents a by-product of the glaciers that once covered Canada, that originally Sable Island was the terminal moraine of a glacier's advance (though much of that original sand has since been moved by wind and wave). The island has not been a static one, changing in size and shape numerous times over human history. Many believe that the island will eventually vanish, its sand vanishing into the depths of the Gully, a huge canyon cut in the continental shelf that almost touches the tip of the island's eastern bar, massive in size (largest submarine canyon in the western North Atlantic at 25 miles long, 10 miles wide, and 8,000 feet deep). There is a great deal of debate over whether the island is moving east, moving west, growing, or shrinking, a subject covered a length.

Meteorology and oceanography around the island are very well covered, with much discussion of global currents and wind systems. The island is very windy, with average winds at 16 miles an hour, gales of up 85 miles an hour routine, and winds of over 120 mph recorded during hurricane-strength storms. It is also wet - annual precipitation is 55 inches, mostly rain, monthly averaging between 3.6 and 5.7 inches - and foggy (July routinely boasts upwards of 20 foggy days and one June had 126 straight hours of fog).

Numerous animals call the island home. For decades the island was known for cattle that had been let loose on the island, though they were all harvested by the 1630s. More famous -and still present - are the ponies of Sable, owing their existence to the politics of the Expulsion (or in French the Grand Derangement or Great Upheaval) of the Acadians in the 1750s. The authors go into a great deal of detail on horse genealogy, firmly showing that the horses bear genetic (and historical) relationships to horses from Acadia. At various times rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, and foxes plagued the island though all have since been removed. Native animals include many species of insects (including three endemic moths and a beetle), a unique nematode, an endemic freshwater sponge which lives in the island's numerous ponds, the Ipswich Sparrow (a subspecies of the Savannah sparrow, breeds only on Sable), numerous nesting seabirds (mostly gulls, terns, and sandpipers), and seals (mostly gray and harbor). The walrus once occurred on the island but has been extinct since the mid 17th century though for many decades afterward their tusks were collected from the shifting sands.

Much of the book (I would say over half) dealt with the human history of the island. It was comprehensive, going all the way back to debates over whom first saw and may have landed on the island, whether they were Viking, Basque, or Portuguese. There was much confusion in early maps over where the island was, its exact shape and size, and indeed who owned it. At various times the island was called Fagunda Island, Santa Cruz, and Isola della Rena (rena being Italian for sand) before the name became Sable Island (or Isle de Sable) in 1601. Unfortunately, most of the human history of the island is associated with the numerous shipwrecks, many of them with few if any survivors and at times hundreds of lives were lost, leading eventually to life saving services and lighthouses being set up on the island. Much of this made for exciting reading, with many first person accounts quoted of shipwrecked sailors and those involved in life saving.

An interesting book, I would have liked some pictures though.

This is a fun book! But it is not an adventure story of the like of Robinson Caruso. When one thinks of islands, the most likely image is of a romantic, heroic struggle against, and with nature. Well, some of the narrative is that, but there is much more, perhaps too much. It is a political, social, economic, cultural, geographic and geological history book. If you have a degree in history (as I do) it will probably be more pleasurable reading. Without a background in historical terms and events, it might be confusing at several points.

At times the language roams into the realm of what I will call "fractal minutiae." That is, one wonders if the levels will go as deep as quantum physics, or ever stop. The lineage of families who had political or de facto control over the island at various times, the legitimacy of their claims, and what happened to them and their heirs occupies too much space. This seems unnecessary. There were a couple of chapters I forced myself to get through.

Nevertheless, there is much about the work that is compelling. One is left with a deep feeling of respect for the powers of nature and the island itself, a seemingly living, evolving entity whose fate is in doubt.

Although it contains a lot of information, it can hardly be called a book. It's just a few A4s glued, that look like a (bad) students homework. There are others, and much better options, on weather books in the market

One of the best weather forecasting reference guides available for weather enthusiasts.

This is very accessible forecasting handbook for advanced hobbyists and those who are starting the lifetime quest to become better forecasters. Tim is a knowledgable and experienced meteorologist, particularly respected in the stormchasing community where skill in forecasting is crucial. Highly recommended.

Tim has written a great primer and reference that will help students and hobbyists learn meteorological concepts - and how to apply them to forecasting. While many textbooks cover the physics of meteorology (including lots of heavy math), this is the only book I've seen which clearly and simply explains how to use that knowledge, and you don't need to know calculus to understand it.

Most books about meteorology serve one of two audiences: beginning amateurs and budding professionals. That has left serious, mid-level amateurs in the cold. To their rescue comes Tim Vasquez with his Forecasting Handbook.

The book clearly describes weather phenomena and forecasting methods and explains many scientific terms in words and pictures. Thus it goes well beyond pretty coffee-table books. Among other things, Vasquez covers arcane topics like the hypsometric equation, cold and warm baroclinic lows, and vorticity. Surface and upper-air data are available at many websites and via the author's own Digital Atmosphere software, a great mapping tool. Vasquez' book helps you make sense of them.

This book makes one huge mistake. The author assumes that man-made catastrophic global warming is a reality when it's just a myth. It has been scientifically proven that global warming is natural part of the earth's cycle, and is most likely beneficial to mankind. Even the renowned environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg, has publicly acknowledged that the global warming scare is a load of garbage.

If anybody has packed more common sense into such a small space as David Reay has accomplished with this book, i've missed it. "Common sense" is the concept which supposedly governs our daily lives. However, somewhere along the way, there's been a slippage. Our lives, and that of our children, are under threat. Our common sense couldn't perceive the rapid rate of change occuring in the environment around us. Now, we must take back charge of the future. Reay isn't asking you to make drastic changes in your lifestyle to accomplish this. Instead, he demonstrates how small steps can improve our condition and make it sustainable for our children.

The author's method is well suited to the task. He invents a "typical" family of four, the Carbones, who could be your neighbours. There are John and Kate, with their two boys. Later, Kate will be discovered pregnant with Lucy. Lucy will become a guiding example for choices leading to alternative futures. Reay outlines the daily lives of the Carbones. There's getting the boys to school, John and Kate to work, and the various side trips for groceries and the like. Grandma Carbone visits from her house across town. What contribution to greenhouses gases does this lifestyle make every day? Every year? What changes can and should be made? Or can this daily round continue without modification?

Reay's answer to the last question is a resounding "No!". He provides numerous examples of visible and hidden costs that perhaps only a few of us recognise. Is your house one of the "uninsurable" residences? Insurance companies view climate change and sea level rise as inevitable and know the risks are too high for coverage. There are more direct considerations than insurance, however. What will your next automobile be? Reay suggests you review just what type of vehicle you really need. He favours the "dual-fuel" solution, since the overwhelming use of cars is local and urban. Can you resist the "upgrade" of your fridge to one that talks to you? If you need more space, is renovation more cost effective than shifting to a newer, larger residence? Finally, give thought to your workplace. How many lights, computers and other office appliances sitting there humming away drawing hydroelectric power for 24 hours per day, 365 days a year? What can you do about that?

Reay asks a good many questions of us all. He provides the reasons for the questions. One major factor behind many of them is the hidden "embodied" resource cost. That new fridge or upgraded personal computer arrived manufactured. The components, case and other parts required mining or other processing. While we're on the subject of hidden costs, what are you paying in "food-miles" - the shipping of foodstuffs from distant places that might just as readily be grown locally? Reay's approach isn't preachy nor does he want you to don a hair shirt of guilt over your climate impact. He does, however, urge immediate consideration of what you can do to reduce that effect. The choices are all yours, not his. However, for you, your children and for the rest of us, it's important that you confront the issue and make the decisions. The Carbones considered them carefully and implemented them without significant lifestyle adjustment. Can you keep up with the Carbones? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

It really makes one think about how every single person is responsible for global warming and the changes on our planet. Definetely worth reading!

Climate change can seem like a huge and abstract subject, a topic for politicians and scientists. This book attempts to bring things down to the level of the individual and the family.

There are the familiar predictions of life in the mid-21st century, if nothing is done about global warming. Sea levels will rise because of melting ice caps, flooding thousands of square miles of coastlines, displacing millions of people. Americans who live anywhere near the coast will find it increasingly hard, or impossible, to get flood insurance. Temperate climates will move north. Tropical climates will become hotter and more uninhabitable.

This book also visits the Carbone's, a typical family living in the American southeast. They own an SUV, and the two young sons live for video games and computers. The air conditioner is continually running all summer, the electronics are usually left on all day, and the SUV frequently has one occupant. The author looks at Mrs. Carbone starting an herb and vegetable garden in the back yard, Mr. Carbone becoming more environmentally aware at work, and the SUV being traded in for a smaller car.

The energy saving suggestions in this book may seem like common sense, but they bear repeating. Trade in your gas-guzzler for a more fuel-efficient car. If practical, consider mass transit. Start a vegetable garden, then start a compost pile. If your home or office computer needs to be on all day, use the monitor's Sleep mode. Use your town's recycling system. Keep in mind the distance traveled by produce to reach your supermarket, and buy local. Also, try vacationing closer to home. When a person has died, consider a biodegradable casket (isn't the intention that the body be returned to the soil?). Last but not least, buy items with less packaging or items made from recycled materials.

This book does an excellent job of bringing an abstract subject like global warming down to earth. It says a lot, in a very easy to read format. It is also pretty funny, too. What can I, or my family, do about global warming? Here is the answer.

I am just getting started in the class where I am using this book and so far it is quite informative

I hope to meet help for my RS course to undergraduate university students

Great information on how to read satellite images. Will greatly help in Meteorology studies whether you're a student or a more advanced hobbyist. It is best to have an introduction into meteorology such as "Meteorology Today" before reading this book. It will help in your understanding of the text.

I was disappointed as the material covered only meterology. While very good, I was hoping for some coverage of vegetation and geology.

As a transplanted east coaster, I was hoping for something to evoke the flavor of what life at the top of one of my favorite hikes is like. Instead, this is a mish-mash of poorly related musings: a half-baked geology lesson, a half-baked history lesson, a few stories about bad weather and hikes, but nothing that comes across as heartfelt or compelling.

Worse, the second half of the books is filler -- recipes. One of the first listed is (I kid you not), Grilled Cheese: Butter the bread, put on cheese, grill! Pinder's insight into the mystery dish: it may be fattening.

Not to be too cynical, but I can hear the editor's words: "Eric, there's not quite enough here for a book -- what can you fill it out with?...Recipes? Okay."

I don't like to trash anyone's work, but I'd advise you to save your money -- this one's a disappointment.

This is a good read. Witty, warm, engaging--I was thoroughly immersed in the environs of Mt. Washington that the book related. The mood evoked both the warm cozy feeling of being tucked away indoors with a fire going (safe from the rugged outdoors), as well as the electric thrill of experiencing harsh, brutal weather first-hand. Believe it or not, I was actually hungry for a hot meal from reading this!

Eric's book is a delightfull source of both light hearted stories and easy to understand weather knowledge. If you love The Rockpile or just have a desire for a good weather book, then this book will not disapoint.

Great stories of life on top of Mount Washington. Interlaced with the stories like shovling snow from the kitchen and sliding 8 miles to the bottom of the mountain are explainations of our weather, how it forms and why. They also have cooking contests (what eles can you do when it's 41 below) and tell you how to make their great foods for warming the cockels of your heart on those cold winter days.

Trevor Palmer's study is a thoroughly researched, well written addition to what is now a small library documenting catastrophes in Earth history and in the history of civilization. Catastrophes may come from three sources: asteroids and comets, climatic adversities, and geophysical convulsions. All enjoy high public visibility today, but this awareness is quite recent-basically since about 1980. Prior to that, belief in catastrophes was dismissed by progressive thought as a remnant of religious delusions, which thrive on the frisson of sudden interventions by the gods. The possibility that these delusions might be the mythopoetic expression of the experience of naturally-caused events was dismissed because, it was said, nature operates by regular natural laws, not by unpredictable fits and starts. When it was pointed out that volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, and such like meet this description, the response was that they are purely local events lacking the muscle to threaten civilization. The received wisdom was especially hostile to the idea that rocks from space could threaten life on Earth. All that's now changed. Global warming and the destruction of biodiversity are accepted by the international community to place civilization at risk. Astronomy, inundated with data gathered by space exploration, learned that there are billions of loose rocks in the asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter, and that they have struck the inner planets, including Earth, many times. The inner planets, they say, are a `cosmic shooting gallery' so active that asteroids even strike asteroids! Two of the five mass extinctions are confirmed as resulting from asteroid strikes plus volcanoes, and the other three may be due to the same causes. By an ironic twist in the progress of knowledge, the denial of catastrophes is now the delusion. Palmer's study is the best available guide to this momentous change in the view of our place in nature.

Perilous Planet Earth (2003) is a useful general textbook on catastrophic quantavolution from the standpoint of an academic biologist. So handsomely produced is the book and by so respectable a publisher that one suspects there must be something wrong with it, and there is. It is one more attempt, and a good show, to sneak the overwhelming new paradigm of quantavolution into Victorian England. I cannot recommend it as a record of the history of the scientific movement of the fringe in its valiant and often mad efforts to crack the barriers of uniformitarianism -- it is too incomplete and strenuously current for that. The author came late upon the battleground, whence most of the corpses had been carried off.
It ignores most rough passages of the stresses in science, that are still occurring, without the full climax in sight, thus serving as a kind of Sunday School version of neo-catastrophism, and often doing this job well. For example, he donates more than his share of apologetics to the frequent efforts of scientists, ordinary and distinguished, to frustrate new theories and experiments. Yet, at the same time he does not take up the many little internecine struggles within science, whose innovators would sell their children to get back at each other for real and fancied intellectual injuriousness.
A favorite device of the author to hold his place in the mainstream of academia, while appearing to be a bold innovator, is to commit ambiguous statements of the following ilk: after some blah-blah,..."very occasionally, an outsider can introduce an important piece of evidence, or a way of looking at a situation that would never occur to a specialist schooled in a particular way of thinking. Even then, intruders should be wary of thinking that they have found a simple solution to a complex, long-standing problem, just as insiders should avoid the trap of believing that no-one without their specialist knowledge can...".. blah-blah. Much space that could be otherwise employed usefully is given over to such boring fence-straddling.
The author's 128 closely packed pages of citations of hundreds of primary and secondary sources without a single internet citation are a scandal when most of the newest science plus the old can be found cited on the Web. Apropos; I recently heard a leading physicist deliver a paper, whose contents, when printed, cited only www sources. It is possible to perceive here a policy of the publisher in cahoots with the author to ignore the web; which is like passing over your daily bread. I find no mention of Ian Tresman, whose yeoman work at building a wonderful world of internet consciousness is unique, and done on behalf of the very society that Trevor Palmer entered as a Johnny-come-lately and whose membership was so flattered by the attentions of an academic biologist that it elected him President for a time. Nor of Jill Abery or William Corliss, industrious bibliographers of the new paradigm. Incidentally this same Society's Constitution gives a vote in its elections solely to Englishmen, although most of its members are Americans and other foreigners; an understandable precaution.)
His huge set of references aside, the author does not treat significantly the spheres of astronomy, astrophysics, anthropology, art history, geochronology, historical chronology, psychology and psychiatry, linguistics, atmosphere, geology (except for lyallism), and non-English language sources (even in his monster listings). The book is unsystematic. It should not be confused with a general or special theory of catastrophism or anything else. Nor is it a disciplined or orderly history or categorization of the sciences involved.
Lest I be thought prejudiced, I should acknowledge that he mentions chapters of one of my twelve books in the field (not the major ones), and, of course, not my web site (nor his dedicated Society's web site nor any other) from which my readers download in a month more text on his subjects than will have been read by readers of his book in a year. (His book is 1,588,093th of the books on the Amazon .com sales list; files of the present author's quantavolution series were browsed or read on well over 27,000 occasions in the single month of March, 2004.) He does give considerable place, however, to Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle writer), Edgar Cayce, (the seer), Plato and a raft of Atlantis authors, and he duly earns Brownie points for obeisances to the Alvarez articles on the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary.
His treatment of the giant influence in the field, that of Immanuel Velikovsky, who inspired the formation of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, is paltry, patronizing, partial, and unfair. A few paragraphs about the adventures of Venus and Mars suffice. He practically dismisses the great work on Earth in Upheaval in two sentences. On the other hand, he does not even mention the bete noire of Velikovskians, Leroy Ellenberg, whose many hundreds of pages of letters, articles, and web essays on scientific theories, scientific struggles, and diatribes against Velikovky and his supporters are better informed than Professor Palmer's work -- something that I must admit with considerable regret. I should, it goes without saying, recommend Palmer's coffee-table textbook over Ellenberg's unbound works, in a first course on quantavolution.

Alfred de Grazia
Center for Studies in Quantavolution
9 April 2004

This book was recommended reading for an independent studies course in "Dinosaurs in Science and Culture" for which I had agreed to be a faculty consultant. I initially had high hopes for this book, as it purported to look at an interesting topic: the history of catastrophic ideas in science, starting from the catastrophic views from a religious perspective that dominated pre 19th century science, moving on to the post-Lyellian scientific dogmatism of uniformitarianism, the catastrophic views from outside of mainstream science that came into popularity during the mid 20th century (e.g., the sinking of Atlantis, Velikovsky, etc.), and finally the surge of neocatastrophic thinking in the past few decades with the rise views among the scientific establishment that extraterrestrial events could play a role in organismal extinctions.

However, while I found the earlier part of the book interesting, if a little pedantic (but note that I have no special expertise in this area besides a vague familiarity, and memories of reading Velikovsky as a teenager), I was deeply disappointed in the coverage of the more recent events. As someone Who Was There, the coverage is neither a good scientific synthesis, nor a good history of the science, but instead a rather bland recitation of various views garnered primarily from secondary or tertiary sources (such as "The Book of Life"). I will admit that Palmer lays out the astronomical backing to the changes in paleontological thought quite well ---- the increases in 20th century of our understanding of astronomical events that could led to earthly catastrophes (evidence of comet-causing craters on the earth, the moon, and other planets, and knowledge of the vast array of junk circulating within our solar system). But the coverage of the paleontology is mediocre, at best.

For a start, the text throughout is peppered with illustrations of some of the major players (from Plato, through Cuvier, to Raup). But these depictions are, except in some rare exceptions of the author's own photos, drawings made from oft-published photographs (at least for the 20th century players) that bear an uncanny resemblence to the images constructed from those "etch-a-sketch" boxes that you see in shopping malls. Is this because the author (or the publisher) did not want to pay for the photographic copyrights?

These illustrations lead one to believe that the author will consider the role of the various personalities in the history of the ideas, but this far from the case. OK, so one can't go and interview Lyell, but one can certainly interview some of the modern scientists (or people who knew them). One reads about various players in the extinction debates as if they were mere ciphers in the production of scientific facts. We are given no notion of how personalities shaped the role of scientific advancements. Palmer's ignorance of who the scientists actually were as players in the history of neocatastrophism is perhaps best illustrated by his referral to Jack Sepkoski (the paleobiologist whose database and statistical analysis was so vital to the growth of present-day ideas about extinction events, see comments below) as "John Sepkoski" ---- this is akin to writing a treatise on the history of rock-and-roll and referring to "Mike Jagger".

If this test fails as a good history of science document, it also fails as a good account of the science. The chapters on mass extinctions, especially the end Cretaceous one, issues relating to dinosaur extinction, lack the appreciation that dinosaurs are among the least of the problems in understanding this event, and that explanations that fail to also account for the decimation of marine life (especially the plankton) are largely worthless. Palmer is also apparently unaware of how problems with fossil sampling lead to considerable problems in interpreting any information that can be gleaned from the geological record.

Finally, the fact that Palmer fails to fully appreciate the biological side (versus of the astronomical side) of events leading up to the acceptance of neocatastrophism in paleontology is best illustrated by his placement of the chapter on "Cyclic Processes and Mass Extinctions" in a completely different, subsequent, section to the one that contains the "Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth". One can read the earlier section and come away with little notion of how the more modern arguments differ fundamentally from those proposed by Velikovsky except, perhaps, for the fact that the more recent players had a better understanding of the laws of physics (little wonder my students confused the names "Velikovsky" and "Sepkoski").

Palmer largely fails to convey how the construction of data bases on the occurrences of fossil taxa in time and space, and the growth and accessibility of computerized statistical techniques during the latter part of the 20th century for their analysis, was the underpinning for the use of the fossil record in testing competing ideas about gradualistic versus catastrophic extinctions, and that it was the apparent nature of periodicity of extinctions in the marine fossil record that led to serious proposals from astronomers about how extraterrestrial events may been a key cause in earthly affairs. This is Palmer's Nemesis, indeed.

For a far superior, and easily accessible, account of the end Cretaceous extinctions, and the history of ideas in the development of notions about this event, I recommend the book on "The Evolution of the Dinosaurs" by Fastovsky and Weishampel (Cambridge, 2004), especially the recently updated second edition, although the authors are careful to avoid the type of character analysis of the players that would be important in an actual history of science tract.

Trevor Palmer's study is a thoroughly researched, well written addition to what is now a small library documenting catastrophes in Earth history and in the history of civilization. Catastrophes may come from three sources: asteroids and comets, climatic adversities, and geophysical convulsions. All enjoy high public visibility today, but this awareness is quite recent-basically since about 1980. Prior to that, belief in catastrophes was dismissed by progressive thought as a remnant of religious delusions, which thrive on the frisson of sudden interventions by the gods. The possibility that these delusions might be the mythopoetic expression of the experience of naturally-caused events was dismissed because, it was said, nature operates by regular natural laws, not by unpredictable fits and starts. When it was pointed out that volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, and such like meet this description, the response was that they are purely local events lacking the muscle to threaten civilization. The received wisdom was especially hostile to the idea that rocks from space could threaten life on Earth. All that's now changed. Global warming and the destruction of biodiversity are accepted by the international community to place civilization at risk. Astronomy, inundated with data gathered by space exploration, learned that there are billions of loose rocks in the asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter, and that they have struck the inner planets, including Earth, many times. The inner planets, they say, are a `cosmic shooting gallery' so active that asteroids even strike asteroids! Two of the five mass extinctions are confirmed as resulting from asteroid strikes plus volcanoes, and the other three may be due to the same causes. By an ironic twist in the progress of knowledge, the denial of catastrophes is now the delusion. Palmer's study is the best available guide to this momentous change in the view of our place in nature.

As books go, this one is very short. That, however, is one of it's strengths. By leaving out the details of climate change, which one can find in many other books and reports, and focusing instead on a synthesis of our current knowledge of climate science, Dr. Emanuel has written an extremely useful summary.

I have read many books on global warming, climate change, or, to use the term that I prefer, Climaticide. This volume is one of the most useful for the non-scientist because it presents all the major concepts in a concise, clearly written, yet comprehensive account.

In the first five chapters Dr. Emanuel informs us about two competing views of nature and climate, the physics of greenhouse gases, how we know that climate change is occurring, what the role of humans in causing current climate change is, and what the probable consequences are. Each o these chapters are small gems of exposition and explanation.

Chapter six, which is about the relationship between science and the media, is less useful, probably because it is more political and the author is trying so hard to be evenhanded. The results of this attempt at a balanced description is actually to distort somewhat the history he is recounting.

In attempting to explain why the public still thinks that there is a scientific controversy over the basic facts of anthropogenic climate change, Emanuel points out that "...a dwindling number of deniers [are] constantly tapped for interviews by journalists who pretend to look for balance. Unfortunately, he then does the same thing himself writing that "On the left, an argument emerged urging fellow scientists to deliberately exaggerate their findings to galvanize an apathetic public...". This is an awkward statement by a normally deft stylist, and one is left wondering which, if any, scientists made this "argument".

Chapter seven on "The Politics of Global Climate Change" contains some equally odd attempts at balance. For example, there is a very irrelevant reference to Senator Ted Kennedy's NIMBY opposition to offshore windmills. The afterward by Judith A Layzer and Willia R. Moomaw presents a much more accurate depiction of the current political complexities involved in stopping Climaticide.

The weaknesses that I mention do not affect the book's overall value. The first five chapters alone make it worth owning and, as I think you will find, it can be profitably reread many times.

If you don't have a lot of time, but want to understand what are the main ideas about climate change, this book is for you. It has only 85 pages total, and the pages are small (like a 4x6" index card) making it a very quick read.

Most of the book, up to page 64, is about the science. Emanuel explains in a very clear and logical way what physics goes into the climate models. Those models are very important tools for deducing whether or not humans are responsible for warming. Also, the models are used to predict the future temperature. Emanuel explains several sources of uncertainty, like whether water vapor is a negative or positive feedback (one of the main controversies), the issue of clouds, and the problem of predicting the behaviour of a chaotic system.

There is one figure on page 45 and it is essential: it shows how well the models do at predicting data, which gives the reader an idea of how confidently we can say man-made warming is occuring and how much "faith" to put in the models for predicting the warming trend in the future.

I liked the summary near the end (page 60-63) listing what is known, breaking it into two lists: findings that are not in dispute and findings which most climate scientists agree with but that are disputed by some.

Pages 65-85 discusses the politics and some ideas for averting man-made climate change.

If you have more time, you may try to read the longer book by Dessler and Parson, which I also reviewed.

While there is plenty of evidence to support Dr. E's claims, the fact is that there is plenty of evidence to still argue it. Seeing the name "James Hansen" in the review, and then seeing the term "extremists" used in the description (towards those who may question or argue any of Dr. E's points) may have soured my opinion on the book before I could even open the cover. That being said, I would suggest that people buy "Divine Wind", and stay clear of "What we know...". I was quite confused at the way the book was laid out - with large print, and large margins. With about 60 words per page, it seemed to appear more like a children's book then a serious science book (although obviously, it is very technical, and well written.) However, climate scientists and meteorologists need to stop the political "he said, she said", and work towards finding the differences in opinions/studies, and less time point the finger at one another.

Be forewarned this is a very small book: 82 pages of text, one B&W figure and no references. On a typical page I counted 120 words. I spotted no typos. I found only one sentence where I thought the physical explanation was muddled. The text could provide an excellent narration to a video documentary. A typical citizen needing to get wise about the physics of global warming might be better served by something more than a book without graphics.

Nevertheless, the book is a very quick read and professionals in this field may still enjoy scouring the pages of this book to find out where Professor Emanuel stands on certain issues. I got my money's worth on page 67 where we can read: "Scientists are most effective when they provide sound, impartial advice, but their reputation for impartiality is severely compromised by the shocking lack of political diversity among American academics, who suffer from the kind of group-think that develops in cloistered cultures. Until this profound and well-documented intellectual homogeneity changes, scientists will be suspected of constituting a leftist think tank."

15 of the 82 pages are not Prof. Emanuel's words, but is an "Afterword" provided by other authors. These words carry less authority. For example, the Afterword attributes the melting of the snows of Kilimanjaro to global warming, but some recent scientific research implicates land use changes around Kilimanjaro.

The Afterword also lays out a plan to save us from global warming, with a claim that "addressing global warming could be relatively painless". Here is the plan: "the United States and other industrial economies reduce their emissions by three percent per year between now and mid-century" which will ultimately "reduce global emissions by 75 percent or more". Some of the means to do this provide a chuckle: "driving less aggressively". No account is made for global population growth and global ambitions for prosperity.

Dr. Emanuel does a superb job of separating the wheat from the chaff in this little gem. It's virtually impossible for the average layman to separate conspiracy theory nonsense from fear-mongering reading most books and popular press articles on global warming. But Emanuel presents a sound authoritative analysis of what we really do and don't know.
Unlike many other books on global warming, which bury the reader with a plethora of out-of-context quotes, tables of data, and cherry-picked charts, Emanuel presents just enough solid data for the reader to understand the whole issue.
He covers the philosophic underpinnings of different views, the history of global warming, the science, and finally the politics. When put together in this fashion, readers will educate themselves properly.
Before reading this book, I spent months and months reading peer reviewed scientific journal articles, web-site after web-site, and many popular press articles. Had I read Dr. Emanuel's book sooner I could have obtained the same final position with much less work and time invested.

The book has an extraordinary content to learn about the atmosphere. I advise buy it, the CD is very good.

The students in my class and I thought that this textbook was too newsy. it had WAY too much information for an Intro to Meteorology class. The questions at the end of the chapters were hard also because they were almost impossible to solve. The test bank that my teacher used was so hard. The wording was so touchy that the answers could have gone either way for some questions. My teacher even took a test and agreed that the questions were not clear and that multiple answers could be correct. I would recommend this book to a higher level class, but not an intro class if you want tons of information and a challenge on solving problems.

This text is an excellent resource for an Introductory Meteorology course. Each chapter and topic built upon learning from the previous chapters and topics. This text not only covered detailed information about all meteorological topics, but also contained current event information from the past decade, news clippings, and common questions that may confuse students. The animations and extras included on the additional CD provided an added resource for further learning.

It may be the so-called Bible of atmospheric science, but there are too many typos for my taste. Perhaps if you're just trying to remember what the proper equation is, it'd work better.

Tables of values are frequently missing minus signs here and there, which can make working out the problems and/or examples difficult. There are other random typos that make examples simply not work out. If you just want the equations, this is ok, but for learning, it's actually easier when the typos are in the equations (and not the numbers), since in that case there's a "thought trail" of sorts.

The book claims to be the only reference, in which case you haven't got much choice, but that doesn't make it good.

This book has it all. If you are in the field of atmospheric sciences, it is a muct have. If you're not in the field, but are interested in learning about atmospheric science, I'd highly recommend it. It's a technical book, with plenty of math, but it is written in an engaging, easy to read format. It's packed with information on eveything from tropospheric ozone formation to industruial plume dispersion modeling. It has everything you need to know about atmospheric science.

As if this needs a review... its a bible for atomspheric scientists of all genre. A must have. Especially good for any grad student preparing for the random question during an oral exam. Not that you could read the thing cover to cover, but there is something for everyone.

If you need a great reference, then this is it. If you are not sure you should buy one of the best references for atomsopheric chemistry and physics, then there is no reason to. That's just a sign that you probably don't need it.

Icebergs are made up of freshwater, formed over centuries from snowfall which didn't melt. Over time, they are compressed into ice. The majestic glaciers did not form from the oceans surrounding them, which are salt water. Icebergs are the chunks which broke off from the high glaciers and gloat out to sea.

Pack Ice is composed totally of saltwater and composes ninety-five percent of the ice found in the oceans of th polar regions. Pack ice drifts on the surface of the sea and a single piece is known as a floe. On the beaches there are hugh mounds of saltwater ice joined to freshwater ice. It is thought that the Artic winds push the pack ine to the shore where it gets contained. Though the ocean and the seas are made up of saltwater, the icebergs and glaciers are composed of freshwater ice. An amazing phenonomon from Mother Nature.

This was a good book but I would not recommend it for kids ages 4-8. It was quite verbous. It was very informational, however, and a good source to use in the classroom.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know how Simon works? Does he accumulate all the photographs he wants, then write the text for his science books? Or, does he write his text, then collect photos? The reader knows that the photos are not his because he gives credit to the photographers on the verso/copyright page.

Also on the verso page, the Library of Congress summarizes the book: "Discusses the formation, movement, and different types of glaciers and icebergs, and describes their effect on the world around them." Yes, Simon does, he does exactly that, but in a much friendlier voice.

On page 3 (page 2 being a full-page photo of Antartica at midnight in the middle of summer), Simon begins: "For most of us, spring means the return of warm weather." He describes the thawing process, where it is cold and icy and snow-covered in the world, defines "snow line," then concludes the page with: "It is in the constantly cold lands and above the snow line that glaciers are born." Does it give you chill bumps?

Simon's development of ideas and writing skills are finely crafted together, orderly, logically, using vocabulary conducive to understanding. Amazon's description of the book rates it for ages 4-8, an obviously inaccurate assessment. Simon's books like these are more for ages 8-12 (or above or below depending on interest). Orderly means beginning with snowflakes, on to blue ice and solid ice, then an ice field sixty feet deep. "Then something strange happens. The huge mass of ice begins to move" (p. 6) and an explanation of sliding on melt water or creeping glaciers. Fast glaciers, slow glaciers, dangers of crevices, devastation of glaciers, rock flour, moraines, avalanches, and that's just half of the 42-page book.

I like my mind boggled from time to time. How are these facts for mind-boggling? The largest glacier in Antartica is larger than the United States, Mexico, and Central America combined. The depth of this ice sheet is 15,000 feet, or ten Empire State Buildings stacked one on top of the other.

Simon nearly always concludes with ecology in the forefront of our minds. He describes the effects of glaciers on the earth in the four to ten ice ages since the beginning of the earth. He concludes with the overall effect of global warming--and this was written in 1987 when we were just beginning to become concerned. My goodness, what would he say now?

This book is highly recommended for school library collections and parents who want their children to know about our planet Earth. After all, we all live here.