Read Online The TwoMile Time Machine Ice Cores Abrupt Climate Change and Our Future Updated Edition Princeton Science Library Richard B Alley 9780691160832 Books

Product details Series Princeton Science Library (Book 31) Paperback 248 pages Publisher Princeton University Press; Revised ed. edition (October 26, 2014) Language English ISBN-10 069116083X

The TwoMile Time Machine Ice Cores Abrupt Climate Change and Our Future Updated Edition Princeton Science Library Richard B Alley 9780691160832 Books Reviews

• This book tells the story how real climate scientists collect and analyze data from ice sheets (in Greenland) to determine how the Earth's climate was over thousands of years prior to our modern era. Richard Alley is an excellent writer.
• I was interested in the the technical details and history of the drilling of the ice core samples in Greenland and Antartica. It is a well written book that covers the difficulty of performing this feat. I only wish it had more technical detail.
• To me this book is so far the best to scientifically learn the past, present, and potentially future status of the climate on the earth. The author is very polite, too polite, not to irritate the skeptics on the warming of the earth while the evidence clearly indicates unusual rate of temperature increase in the earth environment. Highly recommended.
• This book provides an excellent background to the current climate change debate. No doom and gloom, just a well written account of the climate cycle, and particularly the past 100,000 years, as it is understood today. The author explains what is known, and admits there is still much work to be done. An excellent book for anyone interested in paleoclimatology.
• this should have been required reading for everyone... two decades ago now. updated and explains it 1,2,3.
• Good science, not politics.
• Very interesting and well written book. I learned quite a bit.
• Alley’s The Two-Mile Time Machine is a book which is written for anyone from an academic to a member of the general population. Alley avoids much of the extremely technical and scientific language and instead writes in a very “readable” style. He uses many references to everyday life to describe scientific processes, calling climate “drunk,” referencing temperature measurements within ice cores as drilling a hole in a half-cooked roast, and referring to the ocean as a cup of coffee with a shot of salty water, along with many other references to everyday things. These images help put climactic processes into everyday terms that many non-scientific people have experiences with. These also strengthen understanding for more scientific minded people.
  The book does have its flaws, however. Sometimes his writings can seem repetitive and large chunks of this book can be tiring to read when read all in one go. His references to relate science to everyday things, while helpful, sometimes misses the mark, and falls outside a reader’s frame of reference. These references are also become so common and overused, they lose their effect. Though Alley seems to promise much about ice cores in the title, most of the information on ice cores stops after the first part of the books as he moves on to talk about climate. This causes the book to have a disorganized feel and seem unfocused in a few select parts.
  Continuing in the vein in which Alley ends his book, education is important for the future of our world. Alley’s science is clear and concise, and his writings are great way to learn about even just the basics of climate. A shift in public consciousness within the United States still must come if we are to fix climate change, as there are some who remain blind to the threat of elevated greenhouse gas emissions. The accessibility of Alley’s words would benefit those doubters with the simple hard facts of climate. Learning about climate past is an effective way to look towards the future and see which changes humans could be forcing upon the climate, and what must be done to improve it.