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The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future - Updated Edition - Paperback | Diverse Reads

The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future - Updated Edition

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In the 1990s Richard B. Alley and his colleagues made headlines with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years. In The Two-Mile Time Machine, Alley tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. He explains that humans have experienced an unusually temperate climate compared to the wild fluctuations that characterized most of prehistory. He warns that our comfortable environment could come to an end in a matter of years and tells us what we need to know in order to understand and perhaps overcome climate changes in the future.

In a new preface, the author weighs in on whether our understanding of global climate change has altered in the years since the book was first published, what the latest research tells us, and what he is working on next.

ISBN-13: 9780691160832

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: 10-26-2014

Pages: 248

Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

Series: Princeton Science Library #31

Richard B. Alley is the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The author of more than 240 scientific papers, he was also the host of the PBS miniseries Earth: The Operators' Manual.

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Princeton University Press and copyrighted, © 2000, by Princeton University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers.<

What People are Saying About This

Crowley

The Two-Mile Time Machine takes a story that has been much discussed in the press and revitalizes it with the author's infectious enthusiasm and with background information on the history of ice core drilling. It provides an excellent survey for the general reader and those interested in the history of scientific exploration and issues related to science and society.
— Thomas J. Crowley, Texas A & M University

Thomas J. Crowley

The Two-Mile Time Machine takes a story that has been much discussed in the press and revitalizes it with the author's infectious enthusiasm and with background information on the history of ice core drilling. It provides an excellent survey for the general reader and those interested in the history of scientific exploration and issues related to science and society.

From the Publisher

"The Two-Mile Time Machine takes a story that has been much discussed in the press and revitalizes it with the author's infectious enthusiasm and with background information on the history of ice core drilling. It provides an excellent survey for the general reader and those interested in the history of scientific exploration and issues related to science and society."—Thomas J. Crowley, Texas A & M University

"Richard Alley takes the reader from the rationale for the study of ice sheets to the story of how ice cores are recovered and how we read the climate and environment of the past recorded therein. He does a good job putting his message on the human time scale and makes his information accessible to the general reader."—Lonnie G. Thompson, The Ohio State University

Thompson

Richard Alley takes the reader from the rationale for the study of ice sheets to the story of how ice cores are recovered and how we read the climate and environment of the past recorded therein. He does a good job putting his message on the human time scale and makes his information accessible to the general reader.
— Lonnie G. Thompson, The Ohio State University

Lonnie G. Thompson

Richard Alley takes the reader from the rationale for the study of ice sheets to the story of how ice cores are recovered and how we read the climate and environment of the past recorded therein. He does a good job putting his message on the human time scale and makes his information accessible to the general reader.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii
Preface to the New Paperback Edition ix
PART I SETTING THE STAGE
1 Fast Forward 3
2 Pointers to the Past 11
PART II READING THE RECORD
3 Going to Greenland 17
4 The Icy Archives—Ice Sheets and Glaciers 31
5 Ice Age through the Ice Age 41
6 How Cold of Old? 59
7 Dust in the Wind 71
8 Tiny Bubbles in the Ice 77
PART III CRAZY CLIMATES
9 The Saurian Sauna 83
10 The Solar System Swing 91
11 Dancing to the Orbital Band 99
12 What the Worms Turned 109
PART IV WHY THE WEIRDNESS?
13 How Climate Works 131
14 A Chaotic Conveyor? 147
15 Shoving the System 159
PART V COMING CRAZINESS?
16 Fuelish 169
17 Down the Road 181
18 An Ice-Core View of the Future 185
APPENDIXES
1 A Cast of Characters 193
2 Usage of Units 199
Sources and Related Information 201
Acknowledgments 223
Index 225