Historical Perspectives on Climate ChangeOxford University Press, 10 de set. 1998 - 208 pàgines This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems. |
Continguts
| 3 | |
1 Climate and Culture in Enlightenment Thought | 11 |
2 The Great Climate Debate in Colonial and Early America | 21 |
The Expansion of Observing Systems | 33 |
4 Climate Discourse Transformed | 45 |
5 Joseph Fouriers Theory of Terrestrial Temperatures | 55 |
6 John Tyndall Svante Arrhenius and Early Research on Carbon Dioxide and Climate | 65 |
7 T C Chamberlin and the Geological Agency of the Atmosphere | 83 |
8 The Climatic Determinism of Ellsworth Huntington | 95 |
9 Global Warming? The Early Twentieth Century | 107 |
Historical Dimensions | 129 |
Notes | 139 |
Bibliography | 167 |
Index | 190 |
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Frases i termes més freqüents
absorb absorption According ages American amount Arrhenius atmosphere authors Callendar carbon dioxide caused century Chamberlin chapter Charles cited civilization clearing climate change cold Collection conclusions considered continued cooling course cultivation culture Department developed earlier early Earth effect environmental essay established Europe example experiments forests Fourier France gases geological glaciation global warming greenhouse effect heat History human Huntington ideas included increase influence Institution issues Italy James Jefferson John known land later less Library London mean measurements Meteorological natural North noted observations ocean Paris past period Philosophical physics pointed present Press produced published radiation recent records regions reports Revelle rise Royal Science scientific scientists Society solar sources space suggested surface temperature theory Thomas thought tion Trans Tyndall United University variations water vapor weather winter York
Passatges populars
Pàgina 3 - I have of late— but wherefore I know not— lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Pàgina 46 - evidence of things not seen," in the fulness of Divine grace ; and was profound on this, the greatest concern of human life, while unable even to comprehend how the " inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit" could be the cause of the change of the seasons.
Pàgina 73 - The aqueous vapour constitutes a local dam, by which the temperature at the earth's surface is deepened : the dam, however, finally overflows, and we give to space all that we receive from the sun. The sun raises the vapours of the equatorial ocean ; they rise, but for a time a vapour screen spreads above and around them.
Pàgina 86 - Branscomb is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society...
Pàgina 71 - No doubt, therefore, can exist of the extraordinary opacity of this substance to the rays of obscure heat ; and particularly such rays as are emitted by the earth after it has been warmed by the sun. It is perfectly certain that more than ten per cent of the terrestrial radiation from the soil of England is stopped within ten feet of the surface of the soil.
Pàgina 143 - In 1811, he published, in one volume, 8vo., his Observations on the Climate in different Parts of America, compared with the Climate in corresponding Parts of the other Continent...
Pàgina 39 - Jefferson and the Reverend James Madison, president of the College of William and Mary, are credited with making the first simultaneous meteorological measurements in 1778.
Pàgina 51 - There is nothing in these curves to countenance the idea of any permanent change in the climate having taken place or being about to take place ; in the last 90 years of thermometric records, the mean temperatures showing no indication whatever of a sustained rise or fall.
Pàgina 178 - Tables and Results of the Precipitation in Rain and Snow in the United States...
Pàgina 71 - The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost. The aqueous vapour constitutes a local dam, by which the temperature at the earth's surface is deepened : the dam, however, finally overflows, and we give to space all that we receive from the sun.
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Informació bibliogràfica
| Títol | Historical Perspectives on Climate Change |
| Autor | James Rodger Fleming |
| Editor | Oxford University Press, 1998 |
| ISBN | 0198024061, 9780198024064 |
| Nre. de pàgines | 208 pàgines |
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