The Discovery of Global Warming: Revised and Expanded Edition (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine) by Spencer R. Weart (PDF)

Description

The award-winning book is now revised and expanded.In 2001 an international panel of distinguished climate scientists announced that the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The story of how scientists reached that conclusion―by way of unexpected twists and turns―was the story Spencer Weart told in The Discovery of Global Warming. Now he brings his award-winning account up to date, revised throughout to reflect the latest science and with a new conclusion that shows how the scientific consensus caught fire among the general world public, and how a new understanding of the human meaning of climate change spurred individuals and governments to action.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Charting the evolution and confirmation of the theory [of global warming], Weart dissects the interwoven threads of research and reveals the political and societal subtexts that colored scientists’ views and the public reception their work received.”―Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Book Review From the Back Cover A Capricious Beast Ever since the days when he had trudged around fossil lake basins in Nevada for his doctoral thesis, Wally Broecker had been interested in sudden climate shifts. The reported sudden jumps of CO2 in Greenland ice cores stimulated him to put this interest into conjunction with his oceanographic interests. The result was a surprising and important calculation. The key was what Broecker later described as a “great conveyor belt'”of seawater carrying heat northward. . . . The energy carried to the neighborhood of Iceland was “staggering,” Broecker realized, nearly a third as much as the Sun sheds upon the entire North Atlantic. If something were to shut down the conveyor, climate would change across much of the Northern Hemisphere… There was reason to believe a shutdown could happen swiftly. In many regions the consequences for climate would be spectacular. Broecker was foremost in taking this disagreeable news to the public. In 1987 he wrote that we had been treating the greenhouse effect as a ‘cocktail hour curiosity, ‘ but now ‘we must view it as a threat to human beings and wildlife.’ The climate system was a capricious beast, he said, and we were poking it with a sharp stick. About the Author Spencer R. Weart is Director Emeritus of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐First of all, I’d like to say that none of my comments are personal. I’ve exchanged a few e-mails with Dr. Weart and I found him an alert, polite and patient fellow. I think he’s dead wrong, that’s all. That does not prevent this book from being a good and interesting one. I’m giving it four stars–that’s a good review.To summarize my complaint, I think the title is misleading. It would be more accurate if it was called “The Invention, out of Thin Air, of the Idea of Human-Caused Global Warming”. Regardless, if you want to study the genesis of the science of anthropogenic global warming (and I do, though I think the idea is an oxymoron), this book is a great overview.This book buys completely into the theme that CO2 contributes something measurable to our climate, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. If you are looking for a storyline in chaotic data (like tea leaves or an arrangement of tarot cards), then you will find it. That’s part of what it means to be human. If you want to think analytically, you have to separate your preconceived bias from your observation and theory. I will confess one of my biases…I don’t think lefty activists are capable of this kind of thinking.Dr. Weart gives no credit to skepticism of the human-caused global warming theme. As a semi-random example, on page 141 he says: “In 1980 Congress had asked the [National] Academy [of Sciences] to carry out a comprehensive study on the impacts of rising CO2.” This paper, Changing Climate, Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, is an important, seminal element in the global warming canon.The chairman of this committee was a legendary physicist: William Nierenberg. Are Dr. Nierenberg’s later contrarian thoughts and opinions relevant to Dr. Weart’s book? Sure, it’s impossible to include every detail and follow every train of thought, but check this out…For the remainder of his life Bill [William A. Nierenberg] actively battled what he felt was exaggerated concern over the role of CO2 in climate change.- NAS Biographical Memoirs, Volume 85All three of us knew William Nierenberg intimately. If the authors had called him a man whose later work in the field made him a skeptic about some aspects of the climate change debate, that would have been easy to substantiate, and we would not have disagreed.- A critique of Oreskes et al. 2008 Nicolas Nierenberg, Walter Tschinkel and Victoria TschinkelIt’s as if, when the conclusion supports the human-caused global warming theme, the information is important and gets mentioned. However, when the chairman of the report disagrees later, it’s irrelevant and not worth mentioning. That’s a form of selection bias which is prevalent in climate change science.My point is…we have instrumental climate data and proxies to study and argue over. For any dataset, correlations are cheap and easy, while root causes are incredibly difficult. For noisy data, there will be various interpretations that are equally valid (or equally invalid, ha). The fact that there are thoughtful and legitimate contrary opinions to the human-caused global warming theory is given no credence in this book. Don’t even bother trying to find balance or respect for contrary arguments. However, that does not detract from the value of this book. If you want to know how the climate change cabal came to the conclusions they reached, this is an excellent treatise and I recommend it without reservation.

⭐Conservative pundit George Will doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming. He often tries to discredit climate science by scoffing at the way a few climate scientists in the 1970s predicted that the world was heading toward a new ice age. Will has no scientific training and his argument is bizarre — basically, he’s contending that science can’t be trusted because science does course-corrections and develops over time. However, anyone wanting to put Will’s statement into historical context should read “The Discovery of Global Warming,” which explains where climate science came from, where it is now, and how it has shaped our view of global warming.As the book shows, serious climate science is only about 50 years old. Before then, scientists lacked even basic data about the climate and had no models to show how the climate behaved over time. Things are different now. Climate science draws on many disciplines — from oceanography to solar physics — and has developed robust climate models. These do a good job of reproducing past changes in global temperatures — and they warn us to be worried about the future if we don’t get our act together soon.”The Discovery of Global Warming” tells this fascinating story. It is short and clearly written. I took away four main points:– the climate is more complicated and less stable (because of positive feedback loops) than anyone imagined prior to the 1970s;– climate science (like any science) has developed tentatively and unevenly, with many false starts (especially in its early years), as theories were refined or rejected in the light of new findings and better climate models;– the world has been heating up rapidly for several decades and will continue to do so in the 21st century if we don’t get greenhouse gas emissions under control; and– business interests that profit from the production of greenhouse gases have funded huge campaigns to spread bogus doubts about global warming and to defeat efforts at regulation.Which brings us back to Will and his ilk. As climate science has matured, it has discarded mistaken theories. These included early beliefs that the oceans would absorb our surplus CO2 and that air pollution might tip the world into an ice age. Although error-discovery and self-correction are signs of a real science, polemicists like Will (whose wife is a business lobbyist and Republican operative) can always cherrypick the history of climate science and use it to impugn the entire field. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people (and virtually no non-Americans) listen to them anymore. I wonder if Will refuses to see doctors because they used to believe in humors.I took off one star mainly because “The Discovery of Global Warming” has almost no actual climate science in it. The reader learns about the history of research projects and international conferences, about diplomatic agreements and political controversy, about the rise of the environmental movement and the backlash from business groups, and much more. But the book has astonishingly little information about the actual chemistry and physics of the atmosphere! This is a strange omission in an otherwise excellent book.

⭐In this book the author describes the history of the scientific discovery of global warming. There are no mathematical equations, no discussion of the physics of global warming, but it is well written, easy reading. The best chapter discuss the difficulty of the problem, the conundrum of the cooling of the temperature in the 1960s and also how the study of the ice ages problem, the attempt at predicting the weather and the study of the Greenhouse effect proceeded inparallel. I highly recommend it.

⭐This book talks about the history of the discovery of global warming. It starts from the early attempts to understand the ice ages, and reveals how scientists work by learning from their mistakes and revising their theories. I would recommend this book not only for those interested in the scientific history of climate change, but also for those interested in how scientists find out about the world we live in. Of course, as we can see from some reviewers, not everybody like the what scientists uncover.I’m a scientist, and I use this book in a course that teaches different approaches to complex problems. Climate science is one heck of a complex problem, and the history of its science presents a fascinating introduction to how interdisciplinarity is necessary in some cases. Most of my students, many of whom are science phobic, enjoy the book and find it eye opening.Pros: Really well written, accessible, easy to follow, and tells a fascinating history.Cons: It may be a little dry to someone not that interested in science.Bottom line: great intro to climate change science history.

⭐I found this book very insightful in that it provides a clear timeline of the discoveries made by the scientists involved and how they conducted their research in their respective fields but I also found it quite a slog to read.The book itself is quite slim, maybe 200 or so pages but feels much longer as the writing isn’t particularly engaging. I also felt like we never really understand whether the earth is going to cool down or heat up as the argument seems to flip flop the entire time, which I suppose is what the case was at the time, however I would have preferred a little more clarity as it became quite confusing for me (I’m not by any means a climate change expert). I think maybe a little end note to distinguish the differences to what they had discovered and thought based on their models or evidence etc. And what we know to be the case today may have been helpful for people like myself trying to learn a bit about climate change.All in all it’s nice to see the process of where it all started through to the present day, I will read more on the subject now that I’ve read this book.

⭐Very informative but you should also read ‘The Invention of Nature.’

⭐Zeigt in fesselnder Weise den. „Entdeckungsprozess“ der komplexen und chaotischen Abläufe des Klimawandels. Das Buch zeigt wie reale Wissenschaft arbeitet und welche scheinbar vollkommen problemfernen Faktoren den Forschungsprozess beeinflussen. Es. wird sichtbar, das der heutige Erkenntnisstand oft auf verschlungenen Wegen in einer vielstimmigen Debatte gefunden wurde. Man lernt, dass ein einfaches „Follow THE science“ doch ein bisschen denkfaul ist.

⭐

⭐I don’t normally bother to write reviews but this little book was excellent. Would recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning more about climate change.

⭐Interesting book.

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