Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Ages (39 page)

SNOWBALL EARTH

Paul F.
Hoffman and Daniel P.
Schrag, “Snowball Earth” (
Scientific American,
January 2000).
Hoffman has been the leading proponent of the Snowball Earth hypothesis, and here he and his Harvard colleague Daniel Schrag present their arguments in clear and convincing language.

Gabrielle Walker,
Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It
(New York: Crown Publishers, 2003).
Walker accompanied Hoffman to some of the important geological localities that provide evidence for the Snowball Earth hypothesis.
In this book she gives a lively and very readable account that focuses (positively) on Hofmann’s ideas but also touches on those of some of his opponents.

ICE AGES AND EVOLUTION

William H.
Calvin,
The Ascent of Mind: Ice Age Climates and the Evolution of Intelligence
(New York: Bantam Books, 1991).
Calvin argues that the evolution of human intelligence was stimulated by the ice age climate of Africa.
He focuses especially on the implications of fluctuating climate (and the consequent effects on vegetation) for human behavior and brain size.

William H.
Calvin,
A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
Calvin updates the arguments of his previous book (above) with new evidence from ice cores for extremely rapid climate fluctuations.

Steven M.
Stanley,
Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catastrophe Allowed Humans to Evolve
(New York: Harmony Books, 1996).
Stanley argues that the ice age climate in Africa was a key element in the evolution of humans.

CLIMATE AND HISTORY

Brian Fagan,
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300–1850
(New York: Basic Books, 2000).
A delightful and fact-packed book that details the chronology of events during the period of the Little Ice Age.

P.
D.
Jones, A.
E.J.
Ogilvie, T.
D.
Davies, and K.
R.
Briffa, eds.,
History and Climate
(New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2001).
A series of academic papers on many aspects of climate and history, from effects on agriculture to the spread of disease.
The contributions are based on papers given at the Second International Climate and History Conference, which took place at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom in September 1998.

H.
H.
Lamb,
Climate, History and the Modern World
(1982; 2d ed., New York: Routledge, 1995).
A classic study of the effects of climate on world history.

ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE

Richard B.
Alley,
The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
Alley has spent much of his career working on ice cores and in this book provides an enthusiastic insider’s view of the harsh working conditions at the Greenland Ice Cap and the excitement and scientific rewards that accrue from unraveling the story contained there.
He also reflects on the implications of these records for our future.

Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, National Research Council,
Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises
(Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2002).
This book, compiled by a committee of the National Research Council (U.S.A.), presents the evidence for abrupt climate change that was available at the time of its publication and makes recommendations about further research necessary to help deal with such changes should they occur in the future.

INDEX

abrupt climate change.
See
climate, rapid changes in
Acheulean hand axe,
202–3

Adhémar, Joseph,
77
,
80–81
;
Révolutions de la mer,
77

Agassiz, Lake,
6
,
108–10
,
229

Agassiz, Louis,
4–5
,
15–16
,
25–44
,
43
,
55
,
58
,
65
,
95
,
141
,
244
;
Brazilian Fishes,
27–28
; departure for United States,
40
; early life,
25–27
; ice age theory of,
5
,
7
,
15
,
21
,
24
,
34–40
; holiday in Bex,
32–34
; interest in glaciers,
28
; opposition to Darwinian evolution,
28
,
38
,
42–44
; professor in Neuchâtel,
31–41
;
Studies on Glaciers,
34
,
36
,
39
,
52
; work with Baron Georges Cuvier,
28–30
; work on fossil fish,
32

Age of Reason,
18–19

air bubbles, trapped in ice,
174
,
179
,
182–83

Akkadian civilization,
213–14

Albatross
(ship),
168

Alley, Richard,
175
; The Two Mile Time Machine,
175

Alps,
141–42
,
208
,
215
,
221
; glaciation of,
124
,
127–28
,
216
; gravel river terraces in,
127–28
,
132

Altay Mountains,
108

Amazon Basin,
42

American Association for the Advancement of Science,
99–100

Anderson College,
72–73

Antarctic ice sheet,
3
,
8
,
149
,
176–77
,
243

antelope,
194

Archean eon,
161

Archean Ice Age,
143
,
161–63

Arrhenius, Gustaf,
168–69

Arrhenius, Svante,
168–69
,
235

astronomical variations.
See
orbit, of Earth around sun
Australopithecus,
190–91
,
193
,
195–96
,
201
,
206

axis of rotation (Earth),
76
,
78
; tilt of,
76
,
78
,
79
,
120–21
,
124
; wobble of,
78
,
79
,
80–81
,
120–21

Bader, Henri,
177

banded iron formations,
154

Belgrade,
118–19
,
130

Bengal, Bay of,
240

bipedalism, hominid,
189–91
,
195
,
206

Black death.
See
plague, bubonic
Black Sea,
203

Bonneville, Lake,
101
,
105–7

boom and bust,
195
,
197
,
207

brain size, human,
188–90
,
196
,
203

Brazil,
42

Brazilian Fishes
(Agassiz),
27–28

Bretz, J.
Harlan,
90–99
,
102–5
,
104
,
111

Broecker, Wally,
137–38
,
182

Brückner, Eduard,
127–28
,
132

Buckland, William,
57
,
58

Burckle, Lloyd,
226

Burnet, Thomas,
19–21
; The Sacred Theory of the Earth,
20

Byrd Polar Research Center,
184

Byrd Station,
176

Cabot, John.
See
Caboto, Giovanni
Caboto, Giovanni,
223

calcium carbonate: in deep sea sediments,
169
; shells of,
136
,
237
.
see also
cap carbonates; limestone
Calvin, William,
190
,
195
,
199
,
205–7

Cambrian explosion,
210

Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem (Milankovitch),
130

canyons, dry, of the Channeled Scablands,
93
,
96

cap carbonates,
155
,
157
,
159
,
161

carbon dioxide: changes in atmospheric,
169
,
240
; effect on climate,
169
,
235–36
; in ice core air bubbles,
180
,
181–82
; in Snowball Earth atmosphere,
155–57
,
165
; sources and sinks of,
235–38
.
See also
greenhouse gases
carbon, isotopes of,
157
,
159
,
160
; fractionation of,
157
; in methane,
160
,
242
; in seawater,
159

Carbon-14,
220
; dating,
132–34

Carboniferous period,
149–50

catastrophism,
7
,
94

cave painting,
204

Challenger, H.M.S.,
166–67

Channeled Scablands,
92–99
,
100
,
101
,
102
; multiple floods in,
103
,
111

Charpentier, Jean de,
32–35
,
37

chemical weathering, and CO
₂
,
236–40

chimpanzees,
188
,
195

Clarke River,
100

Climate and Time in Their Geological Relations (Croll),
85

climate: cycles of,
175
; effect of volcanic activity on,
230
; external forcing of,
227–28
,
231
; future,
6
; interconnections in,
84
; past,
5
,
7
,
139
,
171–72
; mathematical and computer simulations of,
60–61
,
186
,
228
,
240
,
243
; mathematical theory of Earth’s,
120–22
; of Pleistocene Ice Age,
164–65
; positive feedback,
228
; rapid changes in,
165
,
197–201
,
205
,
213
,
230
; role of ocean currents in,
228
; threshold,
227
,
244
; today’s warming,
10
.
See also
ice age climate
Climates of the Geological Past (Köppen and Wegener),
128

cloudiness, in art,
225

coal deposits, Carboniferous,
149–50

cod,
223–24

Columbia Plateau,
92
,
101

Columbia River basalts,
92–93

Columbia River,
92–96
,
99
,
101
,
106–7
; gorge of,
91

continental drift,
123
,
144–46

cores: of coral,
63
,
164
; of deep sea sediments,
54
,
134–35
,
138
,
165
,
167–71
,
214
; of lake sediments,
164
; of trees,
164
.
See also
ice cores
cosmic rays,
220

coulees,
93

Croll, James,
48
,
66–88
,
67
,
115
,
120
,
124–25
,
128
,
133–34
,
137
,
139
,
165–66
,
219
,
228
,
243
; calculations of Earth’s orbit,
82–83
,
83
;
caretaker at Anderson College,
72–73
;
Climate and Time in their Geological Relations,
74
,
85
; early life,
67–73
; honors,
85
; interest in the nature of heat, electricity and magnetism,
73
;
The Philosophy of Theism,
72
; work on causes of ice ages,
74–77
,
81–84

Cuvier, Baron Georges,
28–30