Brian Fagan The Great Warming Summary

Previous climate change predictions have provided scientists, archaeologist and ecologists with information about the past and future of humans. These indications are backed up by scientific research based off of the physics of the Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land and ice. In addition, many researchers have recently turned their focus to past civilizations and their downfall. With information from Mark Kinver’s “Roman Rise and Fall ‘Recorded in Trees’” studies show that from the demise of the Argaric society to the fall of the Mayan, and Ancient Roman Empire, climate change has played a key role in regards to civilizations collapse and nuclear annihilation.

An example of a catastrophic climate change is a period known as the “Younger Dryas,” an epoch in time when the mean global surface temperature dropped drastically in a couple of decades and lasted for one millennium. Although the circumstance of the Younger Dryas is quite different compared to the present, it shows how cataclysmic a drastic climate change could enforce. Two important or major definitions presented in the work are mean global surface temperature and (global) climate. Mean global surface temperature is defined as “average of the air temperature measured at the land surface and of the surface water temperature measured over large bodies of water” (Jordan, 2006, p. 159). As for global climate, according to Jordan (2006), “the average of the global weather…over a time interval appropriate to the rate at which the climate is changing” is the best definition. These two terms appear frequently throughout, which shows the significance of comprehending the meaning as it relates to the argument and explanation.

Global Warming is a raising issue, that if it is not brought to be resolved, then planet Earth has the potential to face many consequences. Each year in the 21st century it has been recorded that the years are the hottest.

Kerry Emanuel starts off by explaining that the Earth’s climate does not naturally stabilize (hence the chapter title, “The Myth of Natural Stability”) and that even the slightest human interaction could send our climate on a downward spiral that we may not be able to recover from. Emanuel also talks about what he calls the, “two strands of environmental philosophy”, which is simply the scientific vs. religious or mythological view of the stability of the natural state of the universe. The scientific viewpoint credits things like heliocentricity and continental drift, while the other claims that the floods and comets were the works of god or gods.

For "Field Notes From a Catastrophe," Elizabeth Kolbert journeys to Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Yorkshire, Oregon—amongst other places—introducing her readers to a slew of individuals either studying or simply experiencing, aspects of global warming.

Carbon dioxide is accumulating rapidly in the atmosphere, it is extending geographically as much as possible, and it is extremely expensive to fix, not to mention if it worsens. In Goodland’s research, the year 1990 was the warmest year, on record in more than a century, closely followed by the rest of the years of the 90’s. Since Goodland’s essay was written, 2016 was the warmest year ever recorded, followed closely by 2015 and 2014, according to the NOAA. The increase in climate is especially alarming because in the last 10,000 years, temperature did not change more than 2 to 4 degrees and it is currently steadily increasing at least .25 degrees every 10 years! Even though scientists all over the world disagree on the rate at which the world is warming they all agree on one thing: the world, is in fact, warming.

A climate interval from around 1300 to 1750, with beginning and ending dates varying by geography (Wolfe, 2014), the Little Ice Age was a period of time in which mean annual temperatures decreased by about 0.6C and mountain glaciers expanded across the Northern Hemisphere. This period of time occurred after the Medieval Warm Period, around the Middle Ages, and is followed by the current period of warming (Rafferty & Jackson, 2016). This idea of climate cycles—known as Milankovitch cycles—shows that climate change is not a new phenomenon.

This webpage describes multiple advantages of wind power. It as well describes the challenges that come with wind power. It also describes how wind power is a clean, renewable source of

The Great Warming by Brian Fagan claims that environmental changes (most commonly prolonged droughts, El Niños, and La Niñas during the Medieval Warm Period) affect human civilization, including human’s trading abilities, overall movement, and quality of life. He examines the world’s ancient climate warming, known as the Medieval Warming, between the 10th and the 15th centuries, also mentioning the preceding and succeeding centuries. Fagan gathers his research using studies conducted by archaeologists, historians, and paleoclimatologists. Throughout his book, he refers to direct methods to study climate change, such as instrument records and historical documents, and indirect methods, such as ice, deep sea cores, coral records, and tree rings. Fagan digs into the rise and fall of multiple civilizations around the world as an effect of The Medieval Warming Period. As well as examining civilizations across the world, he attempts to connect the climate change patterns during The Medieval Warming Period to the current global warming faced today. The Great Warming discusses positive and negative connections between climate change and human civilizations across the world, starting in Europe and working its way into Asia, North America, South America, Africa, and even covering the arctic ice caps; however, throughout the book, Fagan has a hard time connecting his various ideas back to one main topic and can easily stray from his point about the effects of climate change.

The major contributors to climate change so far had been the Industrial Revolution and the invention and wide-spread use of the gasoline powered automobile. The world had now become industrialized and new technologies were constantly being invented. The next big event to come from this happened soon after 1945. After the end of World War II in 1945 the world’s economy started to recover. This sent industrial production into overdrive. The automobile industry quadrupled and major corporations became bigger than ever before (Jeffries). The United States had begun to feel the effects of industrialization in the 18th century, but at the end of World War II the economy was beginning to pick up sending the United States into another period of industrialization. The burning of all this coal and oil put pollution into the atmosphere, partially blocking the sun’s rays. This effect caused the years 1940-1970 to get cooler, leading some to speculate that the world was heading toward a new ice age (Jeffries). But in the 1970’s the earth started getting warmer again, and the phrase “global warming” was now used in some research papers (Jeffries).

Earth is an immeasurably complex planet, and the processes that make it so are equally as intricate. It is this same intricacy, however, that makes the Earth so vulnerable to even the slightest variation in overall temperature or change within the gases that which compose the atmosphere. What We Know About Climate Change by Kerry Emanuel aims to address this issue of Earth’s vulnerability head-on as it suggests the plausible causes for the undeniable planetary warming observed in the last century all the while proposing pragmatic solutions to discontinue the unnatural processes credited with the abnormal warming.

From a scientific point of view, the author describes and substantiates the existence of global warming and also observes the potential effects it could result in. These include of rising sea levels, shifted climate patterns, increased threats to infectious diseases, extreme global temperatures, and coastal erosion. But ultimately, the report informs readers that the degree to which global warming affects life on Earth primarily depends on our decisions.

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) refers to a relatively warm period lasting from about the 10th to the 14th century.2 However, the initial evidence for the MWP was largely based on data3 gathered from Europe, and more recent analyses indicate that the MWP was not a global phenomenon. A number of reconstructions of millennium-scale global temperatures have indicated that the maximum globally averaged temperature during the MWP was not as extreme as present-day temperatures and that the warming was regional rather than global. Perhaps the most well-known of these is that of Michael Mann and colleagues (Nature, 392, 1998, pg. 779). Their reconstruction produced the so-called “hockey stick” graphic that contributed to this conclusion in the 2001 assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “The…'Medieval Warm Period' appear(s) to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries." The accuracy of the “hockey stick” graphic was widely discussed in the press when the Mann et al. methodology was criticized by McIntyre and McKitrick (Geophys. Res. Lettr, 32, 2005, pg. L03710). Less attention was given to subsequent studies, such as that of Moberg and colleagues (Nature, 433, 2005, pg. 613) and Osborn and Briffa (Science, 311, 2006, pg. 841) that were based on different, independent methodologies but reached conclusions similar to Mann. Observations of melting high altitude glaciers are

In recent years, the controversial subject of global warming has been more predominantly brought to our attention. Is the threat of global warming real? Is it man-made or is this just a natural cycle of earth? Does it really affect earth’s inhabitants? Should action be taken against it? If so, what kind and to what extent? It cannot be only a coincidence that the alarmingly rapid climate change coincides perfectly with the increased amount of pollutants that humans release into the environment. The once stable climate has in recent years begun to skyrocket, thus altering the delicate structure of earthly life. This proves to be hazardous to the future of the planet; some people worry that many of the resources the environment provides that

Climate change otherwise known as global warming has been an ongoing issue for decades. Beginning in the 19th century, climate change has increasingly affected Earth and its atmosphere. Rising levels of carbon dioxide are warming the Earth’s atmosphere, causing rising sea-levels, melting snow and ice, extreme fires and droughts, and intense rainfall and floods. Climate change has and will continue to affect food production, availability of water, and can add to many health risks in humans and animals. In fact, in an article by Justin Gillis titled, “Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries” he focuses on a paper written by a former NASA climate scientist, James E. Hansen, explaining the effects of climate change on Earth today. Although many believe Hansen’s theories in the paper are quite far-fetched, the author mentions, “Despite any reservations they might have about the new paper, virtually all climate scientists agree with Dr. Hansen’s group that society is not moving fast enough to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, posing grave risks” (Gillis). Gillis validates the fact that climate change has been rapidly expanding throughout Earth and society has not been able to reduce it fast enough. Many negative risks are being posed and will continue to mount if the issue of climate change is not taken seriously. Although climate change negatively affects nearly all aspects of Earth, it poses a big