History of Climate Change: From the Earth's Origins to the Anthropocene

Theories  and opinions about climate change abound – from those claiming  human-induced climate change is already beyond control to those who  express scepticism about the real extent of these changes.  How should  we weigh up the scientific evidence, and what role does climate change  play in the history of the Earth?

In this  comprehensive history of the climate and climate change, Antonello  Provenzale explains how the planetary climate system works and how the  climate has evolved over millions of years.  Starting from the  catastrophic events that marked the early history of the Earth,  including seas of magma, global glaciations and mass extinctions, he  demonstrates how the climate has fluctuated between hot and cold  periods, with the Earth hot and lush with forests at certain times and  almost entirely covered by a thick layer of ice at others.  The  mechanisms that determine the modifications of the climate are multiple  and complex and include external factors, such as solar luminosity and  variations in the Earth's orbit, as well as internal processes  connecting the atmosphere, the oceans, the crust, the mantle and the  biosphere, composed of living organisms.

While the  climate has fluctuated a great deal over the Earth’s long history, there  are two features of our current situation that are a source of real  concern.  First, the rise in temperature of the last fifty years has  been extremely fast, making it difficult for the environment to adapt to  the new conditions.  Second, the human population is much greater than  it was in the past, and this population needs water, food, energy and  shelter to survive and flourish.  If temperatures continue to rise as  they have in recent decades, ours will not be an easy world in which to  live. To appreciate what is at stake, we need to understand how the  climate works and how human activity is affecting it – not in order to  save the planet, which will do just fine on its own and probably better  without us, but to save ourselves.