 Not a boring science book!
Compared with other books on global warming, I like how informational this book is along with its cleverly organized content. It keeps the reader engaged and in thinking-mode throughout each chapter till the end. Its worth the buy. It presents very convincing data about the global warming issue.
A balanced view of climate change
No one can dispute Alley's credentials in climatology. He is one of the most experienced in glaciology which is where most of what we know about the history of climate comes from. Here in plain language he describes how climate works and how drilling into ice tells us about climate's past. That past reveals larger and faster changes than civilized man has ever seen. The causes are many and complex. But we are far from knowing all of those causes and how they react with each other. We can be certain, however that significant climate change is not the result of a simplistic phenomenon.
Alley writes as a scientist, not as a politician or advocate. He welcomes dissent and like all good scientists realizes that it is the road to progress. Try this. "What are the odds that natural or human activities will trigger an abrupt climate change big enough, fast enough, and soon enough to matter in economic discussions? The simple answer again is that we do not know." .... "Much knowledge is needed before we can begin to predict the known light switch, and it remains possible, though unproven, that "chaos" in the system will render such predictions difficult or impossible". "Nature certainly can start the climate jumping again. But can humans? The answer is 'maybe".
I have read dozens of books on climate change and have studied it for nineteen years. If you want the best general book on this subject, one that tries to make a complex science understandable, that even uses real humor, then read this. It is a book that is clear on its science. That is so because it is not dirtied up with politics, social advocacy or secular religion. After reading it, think for yourself. Then you will realize that scientific forecasts for the future of climate are merely the opinions of some scientists and those opinions are all over the place.
Opinions are not science. Clear, falsifiable conclusions based on real evidence are. Such does not exist for the future of our climate. One should not confuse the elevation of some scientific opinion to authority with science itself. Science arose in opposition to authority. If you are truly interested in the real nature and status of the science of climate, read this.
 Excellent introduction to climate change
If you're interested in reading about the history of climate changes on this planet, and the many causes of it, this is a good book to start with. It's written by Richard Alley, an expert in reading climate history from ice-cores, particularly from central Greenland, data that go back more than 100,000 years and record things like temperature, moisture, and atmospheric content in great detail. Alley first describes how climate history is inferred from ice-cores, and then goes on to give a description of the climate system more generally. Some notable things I learned from this book:
* The past 10,000 years have been an unusually stable and warm period in Earth's geologically recent history. Abrupt, and wild, climate swings have been the norm. And there's no reason to think the climate won't return to that "staggering drunk" state.
* Taking an even larger view of climate change, and looking at changes over hundreds of millions of years, we are actually in a relatively cold time. One hundred million years ago, while dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the climate was quite a bit warmer than now.
* One "climate switch" is well-documented: the shutting down of the world ocean conveyor belt in the North Atlantic, which happened several times over the last 100,000 years. There are likely many other switches yet to be discovered, so put your thinking caps on.
* Carbon dioxide is not the most important greenhouse gas. Water vapor is. But human-introduced carbon dioxide is important in the sense that we have control over it.
* Any near future abrupt climate changes will affect the northern hemisphere much more than the southern hemisphere. But there's no reason to pack up for South America just yet.
* Since traditional economic analysis takes a short-term view, it would say that since climate change is so slow, we shouldn't do anything about it now, we should put resources into adaptation rather than prevention. Some non-traditional economic analysis has challenged this view, but because there's so much uncertainty regarding climate change and the human influence over it, it's not clear what we should do.
I like the author's style. And he's able to honestly admit when he "looks into his ice-crystal ball" and says he doesn't know what the full result of climate change will be and what we should do about it.
 Informative, but not a great read.
The author, a scientist, actually did of OK job of keeping me interested in the book. The thing is... the discussion wasn't technical enough to warrant considering on that level. And perhaps it's just me, but it the author didn't provide any strong opinions or speculation of what may have happened and what may happen... just "layman" (weak) facts about how the tests were performed and what it probably means.
I think it would have been much better if the author would have included an extra couple chapters in the end with just some interesting ideas in a story form of "what happened and what's going to happen."
As it is, if it wanted to be a technical book, it's not technical enough. For entertainment, it's not entertainment enough. In the middle without any strong points in either direction is a bad place to be.
 A perfect example of why you need a good editor
I found this book unreadable.
I don't often say that about a book. I can slog through the Code of Federal Regulations with the best of them. I've edited fiction for publication, and scientific reports. Alley's prose is some of the worst I have ever read. After 41 pages, I gave up. I was nauseated.
Technically, Alley makes some good points. His knowlege is first hand and primary observations. However, his prose is stilted and right out of the 17th Century. I got the impression he tried to make a travel memoir out of his scientific investigations. If he really wanted to make a true memoir, he should have split the scientific from the experiential, either as discrete sections or entire books. The down side to that, he would have be more sophisticated with his writing methods, possibly including other people's observations and dialog in his memoirs and less preachy in his science. No such prose appears in this book. Barf!
This book is a waste of my time and good paper. Shame on Richard Alley, Princeton Press, and most of all his editors! Um, well if had any editors, that is . . .
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