Key Features

• Each chapter has undergone major revisions and new content has been added throughout.
• Authored by the world’s leading climate scientists, most of whom are also contributing authors to the IPCC Assessment Reports.
• More than 200 tables, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs
• Climate modeling technology is more advanced and precise than it was 15 years ago-a major implication featured in this new edition.

Description

The study of climate today seems to be dominated by global warming, but these predictions of climatic models must be placed in their geological, paleo-climatic, and astronomical context to create a complete picture of the Earth’s future climate. The Future of the World’s Climate presents that perspective with data and projections that have emerged from more technologically advanced and accurate climate modeling.

The book is comprised of 18 new and revised chapters that feature reviews of current climate science. The authors are drawn from all over the world and from the highest regarded peer-reviewed groups.

Contents

 

Dedication
Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations & Acronyms
In Memoriam

1. Climates of the Future

SECTION I: The Anthropocene
2. People, Policy and Politics in Future Climates
3. Urban Climates
4. Human Effects on Climate through Land Surface Modification

SECTION II: Time and Tide
5. Fast and Slow Feedbacks in Future Climates
6. Ocean Climates In The Future
7. Climatic Variability on Decadal to Century Time-Scales
8. The Future of the World’s Glaciers
9. Future Regional Climates

SECTION III: Looking Forward
10. Climate and weather extremes: observations, modelling and projections
11. Interaction Between Future Climate and Terrestrial Carbon and Nitrogen
12. Climate-chemistry interaction: Tropospheric ozone and sulfate aerosols
13. Climatic Effects of Changing Atmospheric Aerosol Levels

SECTION IV: Learning Lessons
14. Records from the Past, Lessons for the Future: what the palaeo-record implies about mechanisms of global change
15. Modeling the Past and Future Interglacials in Response to The Astronomical and Greenhouse Gas Forcing
16. Catastrophe: Extraterrestrial Impacts, Massive Volcanism and the Biosphere

SECTION V: Understanding the Unknowns
17. Expect the Unexpected: Future Climate Surprises
18. Earth’s Climate from Geophysiology to Earth System Science
Bibliography: Collected References
Index
Brief Biographies of Authors 

Author Information

Edited by Ann Henderson-Sellers, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia and Kendal McGuffie, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia