Steven Earle - A Brief History of the Earths Climate: Everyones Guide to the Science of Climate Change

I love it. Earle understands the big climate picture and paints it with exceptional clarity.

James Hansen, director, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute

An informative, succinct, and fascinating read Steven Earle offers a unique and detailed account of Earths climate history. His innate story-telling ability, coupled with his remarkable talent for making complex scientific information accessible, makes this page-turner a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the Earths climate system.

Andrew Weaver, professor, University of Victoria, lead author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, second, third, fourth, and fifth Assessment Reports, former chief editor, Journal of Climate

An engaging tour through the complex natural processes at play in writing the Earths long history of natural climate change to our present climate emergency. This primer will give campaigners, policy makers, and concerned citizens a more thorough understanding of climate science and renewed conviction to go all in on applying the brakes, leaving fossil fuels behind, and embracing a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable future.

Tom Green, Senior Climate Policy Advisor, David Suzuki Foundation

People interested in climate change, which these days should be everyone, need a basic understanding of the science of why Earths climate is the way it is, and why it sometimes changes. Earles book makes that complicated story easy to grasp. Its a model for clear science writing, and it forcefully awakens readers to whats at stake and what needs to be done.

Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, author, Power

A clear, concise and engaging introduction to the global ecosystem processes that govern our climate. A fascinating read for anyone ready to go beyond the headlines to learn more about how climate has shaped our history, why current climate change poses an unprecedented threat to our future, and what we can do about it.

Laura Lengnick, author, Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate

EVERYONES GUIDE to The SCIENCE of CLIMATE CHANGE

STEVEN EARLE, PHD

Copyright 2021 by Steven Earle. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

Cover photo: iStock

All figures, drawings, and photos by author unless otherwise noted.

Printed in Canada. First printing September, 2021.

This book is intended to be educational and informative. It is not intended to serve as a guide. The author and publisher disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss or risk that may be associated with the application of any of the contents of this book.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of A Brief History of the Earths Climateshould be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada (250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: A brief history of the Earths climate : everyones guide to the science of climate change / Steven Earle, PhD.

Names: Earle, Steven, author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210264411 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210264713 | isbn 9780865719590 (softcover) | isbn 9781550927528 (PdF) | isbn 9781771423489 (ePub)

Subjects: lcsh: Climatic changes. | lcsh: Climatic changes

Effect of human beings on. | lcsh: Global warming.

Classification: lcc Qc903 .e27 2021 | ddc 363.738/74 dc23

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.

Let them not say: we did not see it.

We saw.

Let them not say: we did not hear it.

We heard.

Let them not say: they did not taste it.

We ate, we trembled.

Let them not say: it was not spoken, not written.

We spoke, we witnessed with voices and hands.

Let them not say: they did nothing.

We did not-enough.

From Let Them Not Say, by Jane Hirshfield

Climate change is not coming; it is here now. The indications are clear, all around the world, with new ones coming to light virtually every day. One would need to have lucrative business interests, strong political convictions, or an impressive degree of stubbornness to be comfortable in saying that there is no strong evidence for anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.

Those who do deny anthropogenic climate change often use the argument that the climate has changed before, and in that they are absolutely correct. The Earths climate has been changing one way or another for 4.6 billion years. We have a reasonably good idea of how it has changed, and when, and why. The main natural mechanisms are changes in the suns output, evolutionary changes in the lifestyles of organisms, moving continents and colliding tectonic plates, volcanic eruptions, incoming comets and meteorites, and even the Earths variable orbit around the sun. Most of these changes have been excruciatingly slow, but some have been fast even faster than anthropogenic climate change. Some are in the past, but most are still operating, and some of those do affect our climate on a human time scale.

The premise behind this book is that in order to fully understand anthropogenic climate change, we need to understand the Earths long history of natural climate change. With just a limited knowledge of how the sun changes, how ocean currents behave, how the Earth wobbles (and why that matters), or how volcanic eruptions affect the climate, we can readily see that none of these natural processes can account for any part of the observed 1C rise in the Earths average surface temperature over the past 60 years. Its all on us.

Knowing something about past natural climate change is crucial to understanding the processes that are contributing to anthropogenic climate change now, how the forcing mechanisms such as increased greenhouse gas levels nudge the climate to a warmer state, and how the feedback mechanisms such as melting ice amplify those forcings. That knowledge of past climate changes should also help us to determine how close we are to a tipping point that could send the climate into an altered state, one that we will not be able to control.

Does 1C of warming matter? After all, nobody really cares if tomorrow is a degree warmer than today. But this isnt about just one day; its about it being 1C warmer every day (on average). In any year, some days might still be cooler than the long-term average, and others might be about average, but we can expect that most days will be warmer, and some will be much more than 1 warmer, and that can make a huge difference. We can also expect dry places to be dryer and wet places wetter, and storms to be more intense, and of course sea level to rise, because ice is melting.