Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (22 page)

A thorough discussion of abrupt climate change is
Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises
, National Research Council Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, Washington, D.C.:National Academies Press (2002).

The quote from Wallace Broecker is drawn from his article “Thermohaline Circulation, the Achilles’ Heel of Our Climate System: Will Man-Made CO
₂
Upset the Current Balance?”
Science
, vol. 278 (1997).

The effects of the Little Ice Age in Iceland are described in H. H. Lamb,
Climate, History and the Modern World
, second edition (New York: Routledge, 1995).

The voluminous findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment have been summarized in
Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Chapter 4: The Butterfly and the Toad

The most complete and up-to-date source on the habits and whereabouts of British butterflies is Jim Asher et al.,
The Millennium Atlas of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

The Victorians’ passion for butterflies is documented in Michael A. Salmon,
The Aurelian Legacy: British Butterflies and Their Collectors
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).

The range changes of European butterflies are described in Camille Parmesan et al., “Poleward Shifts in Geographical Ranges of Butterfly Species Associated with Regional Warming,”
Nature
, vol. 399 (1999).

Information on the mating habits of frogs in upstate New York is drawn from J. Gibbs and A. Breisch, “Climate Warming and Calling Phenology of Frogs near Ithaca, New York, 1900–1999,”
Conservation Biology
, vol. 15 (2001); on flowering times at the Arnold Arboretum from Daniel Primack et al., “Herbarium Specimens Demonstrate Earlier Flowering Times in Response to Warming in Boston,”
American Journal of Botany
, vol. 91 (2004); on Costa Rican birds from J. Alan Pounds et al., “Biological Response to Climate Change on a Tropical Mountain,”
Nature
, vol. 398 (1999); on Alpine plants from Georg Grabherr et al.,“Climate Effects on Mountain Plants,”
Nature
, vol. 368 (1994); and on the Edith’s Checkerspot butterfly from Camille Parmesan, “Climate and Species Range,”
Nature
, vol. 382 (1996).

A useful book on the biological impacts of warming is Thomas E. Lovejoy and Lee Hannah, editors,
Climate Change and Biodiversity
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).

William Bradshaw published his study of
Wyeomyia smithii
living at different elevations in
Nature
, vol. 262 (1976). The evolutionary effects of climate change are documented in William E. Bradshaw and Christina M. Holzapfel, “Genetic Shift in Photoperiod Response Correlated with Global Warming,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, vol. 98 (2001).

Jay Savage’s description of discovering the golden toad, as well as a thorough description of the biology of Monteverde, can be found in Nalini M. Nadkarni and Nathaniel T. Wheelwright, editors,
Monteverde: Ecology and Conservation of a Tropical Cloud Forest
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Details of the golden toad’s life cycle are drawn from Jay M. Savage,
The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna Between Two Continents, Between Two Seas
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

The demise of the golden toad is linked to precipitation patterns in J. Alan Pounds et al., “Biological Response to Climate Change on a Tropical Mountain,”
Nature
, vol. 398 (1999). Efforts to model the future of the cloud forest are detailed in Christopher J. Still et al., “Simulating the Effects of Climate Change on Tropical Montane Cloud Forests,”
Nature
, vol. 398 (1999).

The quotes from G. Russell Coope are drawn from his essay “The Palaeoclimatological Significance of Late Cenozoic Coleoptera: Familiar Species in Very Unfamiliar Circumstances,” which appeared in Stephen J. Culver and Peter F. Rawson, editors,
Biotic Response to Global Change: The Last 145 Million Years
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

The figures on potential extinctions are drawn from C. D. Thomas et al., “Extinction Risk from Climate Change,”
Nature
, vol. 427 (2004).

Chapter 5: The Curse of Akkad

An introduction to Akkadian civilization can be found in Marc Van De Mieroop,
A History of the Ancient Near East
(Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004).

The verses from
The Curse of Akkad
come from Jerrold S. Cooper,
The Curse of Agade
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).

A detailed description of Tell Leilan can be found in the chapter on the site by Harvey Weiss in
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East
, vol. 3, Eric M. Meyers, editor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Climate change was first proposed as the cause of the abandonment of Tell Leilan in Harvey Weiss et al., “The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization,”
Science
, vol. 261 (1993).

An overview of the connections between climate change and societal collapse can be found in Peter B. deMenocal, “Cultural Responses to Climate Change During the Late Holocene,”
Science
, vol. 292 (2001).

The findings of American scientists in Lake Chichancanab are described in David Hodell et al., “Possible Role of Climate in the Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization,”
Nature
, vol. 375 (1995). The findings of researchers off the coast of Venezuela are described in Gerald Haug et al., “Climate and the Collapse of Mayan Civilization,”
Science
, vol. 299 (2003). A detailed discussion of drought and Mayan civilization can be found in Richardson B. Gill,
The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life, and Death
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001).

James Hansen spoke of being “captivated” by the study of greenhouse warming in a speech titled “Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference: A Discussion of Humanity’s Faustian Climate Bargain and the Payments Coming Due,” delivered at the University of Iowa, October 26, 2004.

Predictions of warming-induced water shortages in the United States come from David Rind et al., “Potential Evapotranspiration and the Likelihood of Future Drought,”
Journal of Geophysical Research
, vol. 95 (1990).

Peter deMenocal wrote about the connections between climate change and human evolution in “African Climate Change and Faunal Evolution During the Pliocene-Pleistocene,”
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
, vol. 220 (2004).

Evidence of the drought in Tell Leilan in sediments from the Gulf of Oman is presented in Heidi Cullen et al., “Climate Change and Collapse of the Akkadian Empire: Evidence from the Deep Sea,”
Geology
, vol. 28 (2000).

The connection between climate change and the disintegration of Harappan society is discussed in M. Staubwasser et al., “Climate Change at the 4.2 Ka BP Termination of the Indus Valley Civilization and Holocene South Asian Monsoon Variability,”
Geophysical Research Letters
, vol. 30, no. 8 (2003).

Chapter 6: Floating Houses

Figures on the Netherlands’ water management system come from the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management,
Water in the Netherlands: 2004–2005
(The Hague, 2004).

Figures on sea level rise are drawn from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
, J. T. Houghton et al., editors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

The study of flooding commissioned by the British government is cited in David A. King, “Climate Change Science: Adapt, Mitigate, or Ignore?”
Science
, vol. 303 (2004).

A detailed analysis of the Vostok core can be found in Jean Robert Petit et al., “Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past 420,000 Years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica,”
Nature
, vol. 399 (1999).

Discussions of the threshold for “dangerous anthropogenic interference” can be found in Brian C. O’Neill and Michael Oppenheimer, “Dangerous Climate Impacts and the Kyoto Protocol,
Science
, vol. 296 (2002); and James Hansen, “A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes ‘Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference’?”
Climatic Change
, vol. 68 (2005).

Chapter 7: Business as Usual

The Environmental Protection Agency’s personal emissions calculator can be found at:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ResourceCenterToolsGHGCalculator.html
.

Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow laid out their “wedge” scheme in “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies,”
Science
, vol. 305 (2004).

Information on the fuel efficiency of U.S. autos comes from the report “Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends,” Advanced Technology Division, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, July 2005.

The need for new energy technologies to stabilize CO
₂
is discussed in Martin Hoffert et al., “Advanced Technology Paths to Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet,”
Science
, vol. 298 (2002); and also in Hoffert et al., “Energy Implications of Future Stabilization of Atmospheric CO
₂
Content,”
Nature
, vol. 395 (1998). Martin Hoffert and Seth Potter wrote about space-based solar power in “Beam It Down: How the New Satellites Can Power the World,”
Technology Review
, October 1, 1997.

Chapter 8: The Day After Kyoto

Former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill’s speculations about Vice President Dick Cheney are recounted in Ron Suskind,
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

The high degree of consensus on global warming is documented by Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,”
Science
, vol. 306 (2004).

The Bush administration’s editing of climate science reports was disclosed by Andrew C. Revkin, “Bush Aide Edited Climate Reports,”
New York Times
, June 8, 2005.

The Bush administration’s efforts to water down the proposal for joint action at the 2005 G8 Summit were reported by Juliet Eilperin, “U.S. Pressure Weakens G8 Climate Plan,”
Washington Post
, June 17, 2005.

Chapter 10: Man in the Anthropocene

Paul J. Crutzen wrote about the dawn of the Anthropocene and the “luck” that spared the world from catastrophic ozone loss in his essay “Geology of Mankind,”
Nature
, vol. 415 (2002).

Sherwood Rowland recounts his reaction to his discovery in Heather Newbold, editor,
Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect on Their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).

The discovery of the “ozone hole” is related in Stephen O. Anderson and K. Madhava Sarma,
Protecting the Ozone Layer: The United Nations History
(London/Sterling, VA: Earthscan Publications, 2002).

The amount of warming still required to bring the earth into energy balance is discussed in James Hansen et al., “Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications,”
Science
, vol. 308 (2005).

Afterword

The polling figures come from the ABC News/
Washington Post
survey “Obama’s Priorities,” released on December 20, 2008.

The estimate that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer “well before the end of this century” comes from Julienne Strove, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, and was reported by the center in its press release of September 28, 2005, titled “Sea Ice Decline Intensifies.” The figures from 2007 also come from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, and were reported in its press release “Arctic Sea Ice Shatters All Previous Record Lows,” released on October 1, 2007.

Jay Zwally’s remark about the canary was reported by Seth Borenstein, of the Associated Press, on December 11, 2007.

Measurements of Antarctica come from Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr, “Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Shows Mass Loss in Antarctica,”
Science Express
, March 2, 2006.

Measurements of Greenland come from Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam, “Changes in the Velocity Structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet,” Science, vol. 311 (2006)

Sea level figures are from W. T. Pfeffer, J.T. Harper, and S. O’Neel, “Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st Century Sea Level Rise,” Science, vol. 321 (2008).

The most recent study projections of acidification of the Southern Ocean can be found in Ben I. McNeil and Richard J. Matear, “Southern Ocean acidification: A tipping point at 450-ppm atmospheric CO
₂
,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, vol. 105 (2008).

The Global Carbon Project reported its findings in “Global Carbon Project: Carbon budget and trends 2007,” released on September 26, 2008.

The remarks from James Hansen come from Hansen et al., “Target Atmospheric CO
₂
: Where Should Humanity Aim?”
The Open Atmospheric Science Journal
, vol. 2 (2008).

Resources

Hundreds of groups in the U.S. are working to curb greenhouse gas emissions on the local, state, and national levels. Many provide information on their Web sites about how individuals can reduce their own “carbon footprints.” Others offer updates on scientific and political news.