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In the 1990s Richard B. Alley 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. In The Two-Mile Time Machine, Alley tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. He explains that humans have experienced an unusually temperate climate compared to the wild fluctuations that characterized most of prehistory. He warns that our comfortable environment could come to an end in a matter of years and tells us what we need to know in order to understand and perhaps overcome climate changes in the future.
In a new preface, the author weighs in on whether our understanding of global climate change has altered in the years since the book was first published, what the latest research tells us, and what he is working on next.
Winner of the 2001 Book Award in Science, Phi Beta Kappa
One of Choices Outstanding Academic Titles for 2001
List of Illustrations vii
Preface to the New Paperback Edition ix
PART I SETTING THE STAGE
1 Fast Forward 3
2 Pointers to the Past 11
PART II READING THE RECORD
3 Going to Greenland 17
4 The Icy Archives—Ice Sheets and Glaciers 31
5 Ice Age through the Ice Age 41
6 How Cold of Old? 59
7 Dust in the Wind 71
8 Tiny Bubbles in the Ice 77
PART III CRAZY CLIMATES
9 The Saurian Sauna 83
10 The Solar System Swing 91
11 Dancing to the Orbital Band 99
12 What the Worms Turned 109
PART IV WHY THE WEIRDNESS?
13 How Climate Works 131
14 A Chaotic Conveyor? 147
15 Shoving the System 159
PART V COMING CRAZINESS?
16 Fuelish 169
17 Down the Road 181
18 An Ice-Core View of the Future 185
APPENDIXES
1 A Cast of Characters 193
2 Usage of Units 199
Sources and Related Information 201
Acknowledgments 223
Index 225
Description
In the 1990s Richard B. Alley 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. In The Two-Mile Time Machine, Alley tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. He explains that humans have experienced an unusually temperate climate compared to the wild fluctuations that characterized most of prehistory. He warns that our comfortable environment could come to an end in a matter of years and tells us what we need to know in order to understand and perhaps overcome climate changes in the future.
In a new preface, the author weighs in on whether our understanding of global climate change has altered in the years since the book was first published, what the latest research tells us, and what he is working on next.
Winner of the 2001 Book Award in Science, Phi Beta Kappa
One of Choices Outstanding Academic Titles for 2001
