(Part 2) Best earth sciences books according to redditors
We found 1,057 Reddit comments discussing the best earth sciences books. We ranked the 519 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
When I say I "doubt" humans survive I was sort of being tongue-in-cheek. There is absolutely no chance we’d survive that. There’s a popular book based on scientific modeling that lays out the devastation of only 6 degrees, and burning all known reserves would almost double that. Basically we have a “carbon budget” to stay within the 2 degrees that is generally seen as the upper limit of “safe”, and globally there is 5 times the amount of fossil fuels needed to hit that, plus you have massive carbon/methane deposits in the earth that would release. There would be no adapting.
Read the linked papers:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but the debate is how potent of a climate gas CO2 is when added to our atmosphere. CO2 has increased from around 280 ppm in 1850 to around 410 in 2019 (due to human emissions), and in that time the temperature on earth has increased approximately 1 degC. Atmospheric CO2 looks to hit 560 ppm (double 1850-levels) late this century.
The potency of CO2 is expressed as "ECS"(Equilbrium Climate Sensitivity") in climate modeling. ECS expresses temperature increase at equilibrium from doubling CO2.
Due to climate's thermal inertia roughly half of a temperature change due to forcing is realized within 10 years, while 14-40% has still not arrived after a century. The IPCC in AR5 (2014) stated that ECS is "likely between 1.5 and 4.5" The climate models "CMIP5" cited by IPCC in AR5 have an average ECS of 3.2 *.
Lower ECS ~1.5 better fit satellite era observations. ECS can be estimated directly from data without climate models. AR5 WG1 stated "best fit to the observed surface and ocean warming for ECS values in the lower part of the likely range" (p.84). There is least uncertainty in temperature data after the start of satellite record ~1979, and for this timeframe ECS is estimated in 1.5-2 range [1], [2]
(In general, ECS-estimates vary based on temperature dataset**, choice of start- and end-dates, carbon-cycle*** modeling and warming attribution to other sources (overview)).
The significance of ECS=1.5 would be huge, implying almost no further warming this century. ECS of 1.5 will imply another 1.5-1=0.5 degC of eventual warming, while ECS=3.2 implies 3.2-1=2.2 degC eventual warming. ECS=1.5 thus implies four times less warming from CO2 increases this century than current IPCC models!
Removing multi-decadal oscillations from data yields ECS 0.5-1.5. Natural oscillations with multi-year periods such as El Niño(11y), AMO(~60y) and PDO(~50-60y) dominate data on the timescale since 1850. Climate models do not accurately [ch1.2] model these oscillations. Removing oscillations mathematically to isolate underlying warming results in much lower climate sensitivity than in AR5: ECS ~1.5,TCR ~1.2 on 150 years of instrumental data, and ECS=0.6 on ~1000 years of proxy-data. These papers remove oscillations without the need to attribute causes to them, but as some of the oscillations removed will be solar-induced, the work is related to the sections below.
Human CO2-emissions coincide with the end of the "Little Ice Age"(LIA) and with solar forcing transitioning from abnormally low to abnormally high. LIA had globally colder climate, coinciding with "Maunder" (1645-1715) and "Dalton"(1790-1830) solar minima. LIA average temperatures were 0.5-0.7 degC lower than Medieval Warm Period(MWP). 1850 at the end of LIA was unusually cold, is thus a poor baseline. Climate inertia should apply for solar as well as CO2-driven warming, implying a long post-LIA transient warming. Second half of the 20th century is the period of highest solar activity in the last 8000 years. A link between solar forcing changes and LIA/MWP has been found, so solar variation partially explaining modern warming up to the early 00ies is also plausible.
There is disagreement on if solar variability is "high variability" or "low variability"
Modeling solar activity is challenging because no direct measurements of solar variability exist prior to satellite record from ~1980, and because the record is "grafted" together from a data from many short-lived satellites, (review of challenges given in ch1).
CMIP5 uses a "low-variability" estimate of solar variation "PMOD" based on work by Kopp&Lean,
that has been strongly critized(ch9) for being an unverified theoretical model which implements alterations not recognized by the original experimental teams to drifts that are postulated but not verified. The alternative to "PMOD" are "high-variability" TSI-estimates such as that of Hoyt&Schatten that agree with "ACRIM" satellite data. Evidence that high-variability TSI-estimates are more accurate are:
Solar forcing variability is key to climate modeling, because just a 0.3% (5 W/m2) increase is enough to explain the 1 degC warming since 1850. TSI ~1360 W/m2 raises the earth's temperature from around -268 degC to 15 degC (283 degC), a gain of ~0.2 degC per W/m2.
"High-variability" TSI vary by 3-4 W/m2 over the past centuries, and could thus explain 50-80% of observed modern warming.
CMIP5 models are running hot as solar activity falls, indicating that variability in their solar forcing estimate is too low. Because solar forcing and CO2-concentrations co-incident rise 1850-2000, underestimating climate solar sensitivity would wrongfully raise CO2-sensitivity (ECS),explaining why:
Compensating for "high-variability" TSI-changes results in ECS<1.5. "Hoyt&Schatten" TSI-estimate results in ECS of 0.44. Paleo-analysis of climate, CO2 and sun variability similarly found ECS=0.5.
Persistent flaws in climate research are plausible, outside investigators have commented on the the tendency to downplay flaws in climate research and to withhold data requests.
* "TCR" (Transient Climate Response) is temperature change immediately after doubling CO2 gradually (before transients settle). TCR and ECS both express the potency of CO2, TCR is often lower than ECS by 30-40% (or 0.5-0.8 degC). TCR likely range is given as 1-2.5 degC in AR5.
** Estimates of ECS from data prior to 1979 require use of GIS/HADCRUT instrument records, adjusted by proprietary algorithms using climate models and homogenized which can create spurious warming. Audits of these datasets have uncovered data-quality issues, but datasets are generally hard to independently verify. The sea/surface global temperature record is only globally complete for the satellite era. A reason for skepticism is that recent warming is not corroborated by an accelerated sea level rise at tidal gauges. Prior to~1880 proxies are used, but suffer from «the divergence problem» of not describing recent warming.
***Carbon cycle simulations indicate TCR below 1
Some good starting places:
The sub has some decent resources in the FAQ. Other than that, Evolution: A Very Short Introduction is great. It's part of a series of pocket-sized handbooks on various topics, evolution among them.
If you wanna go heavy, Evolution by Douglas Futuyma is where to go.
read a fucking book and learn something
Also:
I'd recommend this book as well.
> I am not going to try and convince you to have children one way or the other. My only point is that some people must have children - if everyone were to stop having children starting today, we would face much harsher consequences as a species than if we were to continue on as we are now (which also isn't the optimal solution either). Ideally, we would start shrinking population gradually across the globe until we met something that is completely sustainable (which is a moving target as technology develops, but I digress).
Loads of people are having children already though. It's not like we're facing imminent population crash.
> we would face much harsher consequences as a species than if we were to continue on as we are now (which also isn't the optimal solution either)
That's just not true though. The present course is the one which is leading to far harsher conditions. Loads of places are already really overpopulated. There are major emerging issues to do with food security, water security, jobs, health, climate etc and most of them are a consequence of the size of the population. Have you read this?
Given that the fossil fuels industry is funding a rather substantial propaganda campaign to convince Americans that they shouldn't limit CO2 emissions, this isn't terribly surprising.
This is a great sedimentology book I used during my geology degree:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Sedimentology-Stratigraphy-Wiley-Desktop-Editions-Gary-Nichols/1405135921
I saw elsewhere in the thread that you live in Alma, so I chose Topeka as the nearest large comparison city: Cost of Living Comparison Between Topeka, KS and Seattle, WA.
Rent is indeed going to be a major factor for you. I don't know how things work in Alma, but here the rent usually only covers the structure itself (the "four walls" as it were); it doesn't include utilities: power, heating, water, garbage, internet, phone, etc. A lot of other cost-of-living factors are pretty similar. My girlfriend has lived in Seattle for several years on about $30k/yr (pre-tax) but she makes compromises to do so: lives with a roommate in low-rent housing, doesn't have a car (but uses Car2Go occasionally), walks miles to/from bus stops every day, cooks 90% of her meals at home, does most of her non-food shopping at thrift and second-hand stores, etc. It's definitely do-able.
/u/synthesizedjasmine's response was really quite good and I'd like to piggyback on that comment (and elaborate upon it) a bit, including some non-cost-of-living things:
Edit to add:
BTW, G. Brent Dalrymple, PhD (the author of the paper at that link) is not just your average internet expert - he is a renowned expert in geology and radiometric dating. A President's National Medal of Science winner, former Asst Chief Geologist at the USGS and a principal investigator on the NASA team that analyzed the lunar rocks brought back on Apollo 11 to 13. He literally "wrote the book" on radiometric dating and the age of the Earth.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Age-Earth-Brent-Dalrymple/dp/0804723311
http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Earth-Skies-Cosmic-Surroundings/dp/0804749337
An Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology by James Holton is probably the most commonly used dynamics book. Another one that I really like is Mid-Latitude Atmospheric Dynamics: A First Course by Jonathan Martin.
As far as thermodynamics goes A First Course in Atmospheric Thermodynamics by Grant Petty is a good one.
Outcomes of the Life of a Geologist is an excellent narrative introduction to geology that I think would pique your interest.
For a more rigorous or sciency introduction, you could look at intro geology textbooks. this was the one my course used (now in 10th edition).
But perhaps a better way to approach this, depending on where you're going to school, might be to just try to learn some things about the local geology. This will help you to get more out of your courses, if they have field components. The local rocks can be a gateway to all kinds of interesting topics, since they are marked by all the crazy shit that's happened to them over thousands to millions of years. For example, lots of rocks in New Hampshire have striations from the last glacial maximum. Let me know if you would like help finding sources/guiding an inquiry in this vein.
PS don't let this subreddit scare you in terms of careers. But DO take the excellent advice here in mind moving forward. You will have many opportunities to distinguish yourself to professors/employers through courses, internships, supervised research...take advantage of these!
Best of luck
If you bothered to read the Springer link you would have learned of the different dating methods used and you would have seen that the article was supported by independent studies.
Attempts to link the Bible and geology were ended long ago. It’s only recently where creationist have regained a voice. Largely because of their ability to publish something online without a peer-review process.
So let’s look at his sources (that aren’t creationists). Most of his sources are from the small and discredited creationist community. They are discredited because the blatantly misrepresent the geological and larger scientific record.
Purdue source:
>The fluctuations we're seeing are fractions of a percent and are not likely to radically alter any major anthropological findings," Fischbach said. "One of our next steps is to look into the isotopes used medically to see if there are any variations that would lead to overdosing or underdosing in radiation treatments, but there is no cause for alarm at this point. What is key here is that what was thought to be a constant actually varies and we've discovered a periodic oscillation where there shouldn't be one."
The ENCODE project has been criticized for its liberal interpretation of the word “functional”. They have since defined the term
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENCODE#Criticism_of_the_project
What is interesting about the Purdue article is that it establishes the scientific community’s pursuit of the truth regardless of what the truth is. If you look at the history of earth dating methods, you’ll see one scientists after another trying to confirm the work of the previous scientist. As time went on, the older ideas and discoveries were supplanted by better ones. And each time the earth was determined to be older than previously thought. The attempts to date the earth go way back to 1700s and even then it was realized that age of the earth was at least millions of years old.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geohist.html (note the diverse sources)
A creationist first believes the Bible and sets out to prove it. They discard what doesn’t fit, massage other data to fit and come back to same conclusion.
You’re entitled to your religion, but not your facts.
Challenge your beliefs and read this
https://www.amazon.com/Age-Earth-G-Brent-Dalrymple/dp/0804723311
You should really just go read this book and fuck off.
https://www.amazon.ca/Avalanche-Handbook-3rd-Peter-Schaerer/dp/0898868092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483725866&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=avalanche+handbook
Buy and read some textbooks that cover the required undergrad courses at a university. Here are a few that come to mind: structural geology and tectonics, sedimentology/stratigraphy, geophysics, earth materials (mineralogy), earth systems, petrography and petrogenesis, field methods and maybe volcanism and oceanography.
But back to your question... If you're mainly concerned with rock formations (sed/strat) then just read this book or this one, they will help you tremendously. Hope this helps!
Whilst I don't know where you could learn online, I highly recommend looking up publicly available field courses in basic geology. You would learn alot and be able to go out hiking!
If you're interested in sedimentary geology, Gary Nichol's book is excellently written, organised, and I would say is very accessible by the layman.
I'd also recommend the different Geology Field Guide Books as they are small, easily looked through and designed to be taken into the field. They have one for sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic and structural I think, very good books that would definitely get you through at least the first 2 years of an undergrad bachelors in Geology.
EDIT: on further investigation I think I meant the Field Description book series. Either look pretty good for a basic grounding.
EDIT 2: I also forgot to mention they're relatively cheap compared to most academic texts!
You should read these two books.
I don’t think you — and a lot of people — understand how much data we have on what happens to this planet when atmospheric carbon and temperature levels reach the place they’re unquestionably going to. The earth has been through a lot in its billions of years of existence, and it creates a lot of natural experiments that provide us insight. The basic thing to remember is that the entire history of human civilization has existed within one climate pattern that’s prevailed for the last 10,000 years, and we are barreling towards a fundamental phase change. As in, the most likely scenario is that huge swaths of land currently housing tens of millions of people will become physically inhabitable. The most likely scenario is that bony fish will no longer be a resource that can be fished from the ocean. As in, the amount of carbon we’re introducing to the atmosphere rivals that released by the earth’s most cataclysmic events, which themselves presaged massive extinctions that killed 90%+ of the life on this planet.
Yes, there’s a bell curve of uncertainty around specific impacts, but you don’t seem to appreciate that bell curves have two ends—it’s possible that the outcome won’t be nearly as bad as the median models predict, but it’s also equally likely it will be catastrophically worse. As in, the literal end of human civilization as we know it is within the reasonable long-tail outcomes (though is not the most likely scenario). I’ve notice that climate “agnostics” who bring up uncertain don’t actually seem uncertain they seem fairly certain that climate scientists are wrong.
"The Avalanche Handbook" is a good, thick reference though drier then Trempers "Staying Alive."
Tremper has a new book that I haven't read.
"Snow Sense" is a classic but short.
I just recommended this book on another thread and it is really great and covers lots of emergency shelter style stuff. Written by two NOLS instructors one of whom happens to be a brilliant cartoonist. They have other books on avalanches and telemark skiing too.
Some good blogs are http://wildsnow.com, http://bedrockandparadox.com/, http://straightchuter.com/, http://forrestmccarthy.blogspot.com/.
The Man Who Walked Through Time. Very good. A philosophical adventure story.
Well then
https://www.amazon.com/Atmospheric-Science-Second-Introductory-International/dp/012732951X
That should get it done. If you want way more "headaches because I don't understand" math then this
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Dynamic-Meteorology-International-Geophysics/dp/0123848660
Those 2 are pretty standard for the field
read the book -- The Man Who Walked through Time...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Walked-Through-Time/dp/0679723064
The issue is that you are walking not at the river level in the canyon but on one of the shelves. Much planning and mapreading involved. The guy who wrote the book had several airdrops of supplies also.
Check out the Princeton Field Guide. It's really nice and around $20. If you're looking for the spiritual side of things, I don't have the know-how to provide a recommendation but if you're interested in the mineral themselves you may like it. It has lots of beautiful images and the descriptions are really good. They'll tell you the environments where they form, what their crystal systems look like, how they tend to break (you'll want to know that for drilling your holes and such - I imagine you'd drill perpendicular to cleavage for less fracture).
As far as fancy rock names, you'll just put that together with experience. You can pick up an old edition Earth by Tarbuck for $10 online and that'll tell you all of your basics and from there you can easily branch out.
It can be confusing and frustrating at first, but just keep at it and it'll all come together with some experience. I can recommend things for days, but those books really helped me get a grip on the variety.
If you have any other questions, I'm super happy to help!
Princeton: http://www.amazon.com/Minerals-World-Princeton-Field-Guides/dp/069109537X
Earth: http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Introduction-Physical-Geology-8th/dp/0131148656/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407769493&amp;sr=1-9&amp;keywords=earth+tarbuck
TESTING COPY PASTE OF TEXT:::: PLEASE IGNORE.
Read the linked papers:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but the debate is how potent of a climate gas CO2 is when added to our atmosphere. CO2 has increased from around 280 ppm in 1850 to around 410 in 2019 (due to human emissions), and in that time the temperature on earth has increased approximately 1 degC. Atmospheric CO2 looks to hit 560 ppm (double 1850-levels) late this century.
The potency of CO2 is expressed as "ECS"(Equilbrium Climate Sensitivity") in climate modeling. ECS expresses temperature increase at equilibrium from doubling CO2.
Due to climate's thermal inertia roughly half of a temperature change due to forcing is realized within 10 years, while 14-40% has still not arrived after a century. The IPCC in AR5 (2014) stated that ECS is "likely between 1.5 and 4.5" The climate models "CMIP5" cited by IPCC in AR5 have an average ECS of 3.2 *.
Lower ECS ~1.5 better fit satellite era observations. ECS can be estimated directly from data without climate models. AR5 WG1 stated "best fit to the observed surface and ocean warming for ECS values in the lower part of the likely range" (p.84). There is least uncertainty in temperature data after the start of satellite record ~1979, and for this timeframe ECS is estimated in 1.5-2 range [1], [2]
(In general, ECS-estimates vary based on temperature dataset**, choice of start- and end-dates, carbon-cycle*** modeling and warming attribution to other sources (overview)).
The significance of ECS=1.5 would be huge, implying almost no further warming this century. ECS of 1.5 will imply another 1.5-1=0.5 degC of eventual warming, while ECS=3.2 implies 3.2-1=2.2 degC eventual warming. ECS=1.5 thus implies four times less warming from CO2 increases this century than current IPCC models!
Removing multi-decadal oscillations from data yields ECS 0.5-1.5. Natural oscillations with multi-year periods such as El Niño(11y), AMO(~60y) and PDO(~50-60y) dominate data on the timescale since 1850. Climate models do not accurately [ch1.2] model these oscillations. Removing oscillations mathematically to isolate underlying warming results in much lower climate sensitivity than in AR5: ECS ~1.5,TCR ~1.2 on 150 years of instrumental data, and ECS=0.6 on ~1000 years of proxy-data. These papers remove oscillations without the need to attribute causes to them, but as some of the oscillations removed will be solar-induced, the work is related to the sections below.
Human CO2-emissions coincide with the end of the "Little Ice Age"(LIA) and with solar forcing transitioning from abnormally low to abnormally high. LIA had globally colder climate, coinciding with "Maunder" (1645-1715) and "Dalton"(1790-1830) solar minima. LIA average temperatures were 0.5-0.7 degC lower than Medieval Warm Period(MWP). 1850 at the end of LIA was unusually cold, is thus a poor baseline. Climate inertia should apply for solar as well as CO2-driven warming, implying a long post-LIA transient warming. Second half of the 20th century is the period of highest solar activity in the last 8000 years. A link between solar forcing changes and LIA/MWP has been found, so solar variation partially explaining modern warming up to the early 00ies is also plausible.
There is disagreement on if solar variability is "high variability" or "low variability"
Modeling solar activity is challenging because no direct measurements of solar variability exist prior to satellite record from ~1980, and because the record is "grafted" together from a data from many short-lived satellites, (review of challenges given in ch1).
CMIP5 uses a "low-variability" estimate of solar variation "PMOD" based on work by Kopp&Lean,
that has been strongly critized(ch9) for being an unverified theoretical model which implements alterations not recognized by the original experimental teams to drifts that are postulated but not verified. The alternative to "PMOD" are "high-variability" TSI-estimates such as that of Hoyt&Schatten that agree with "ACRIM" satellite data. Evidence that high-variability TSI-estimates are more accurate are:
Solar forcing variability is key to climate modeling, because just a 0.3% (5 W/m2) increase is enough to explain the 1 degC warming since 1850. TSI ~1360 W/m2 raises the earth's temperature from around -268 degC to 15 degC (283 degC), a gain of ~0.2 degC per W/m2.
"High-variability" TSI vary by 3-4 W/m2 over the past centuries, and could thus explain 50-80% of observed modern warming.
CMIP5 models are running hot as solar activity falls, indicating that variability in their solar forcing estimate is too low. Because solar forcing and CO2-concentrations co-incident rise 1850-2000, underestimating climate solar sensitivity would wrongfully raise CO2-sensitivity (ECS),explaining why:
Compensating for "high-variability" TSI-changes results in ECS<1.5. "Hoyt&Schatten" TSI-estimate results in ECS of 0.44. Paleo-analysis of climate, CO2 and sun variability similarly found ECS=0.5.
Persistent flaws in climate research are plausible, outside investigators have commented on the the tendency to downplay flaws in climate research and to withhold data requests.
* "TCR" (Transient Climate Response) is temperature change immediately after doubling CO2 gradually (before transients settle). TCR and ECS both express the potency of CO2, TCR is often lower than ECS by 30-40% (or 0.5-0.8 degC). TCR likely range is given as 1-2.5 degC in AR5.
** Estimates of ECS from data prior to 1979 require use of GIS/HADCRUT instrument records, adjusted by proprietary algorithms using climate models and homogenized which can create spurious warming. Audits of these datasets have uncovered data-quality issues, but datasets are generally hard to independently verify. The sea/surface global temperature record is only globally complete for the satellite era. A reason for skepticism is that recent warming is not corroborated by an accelerated sea level rise at tidal gauges. Prior to~1880 proxies are used, but suffer from «the divergence problem» of not describing recent warming.
***Carbon cycle simulations indicate TCR below 1
What matters here is not the label, which we can debate another day.
The timetable of the climate crisis is dictated by physics, not politics. Climate really doesn't care why we do or don't change, or what political system drives it. The situation right now is that if we don't decarbonize very, very rapidly, we will soon reach a state where decarbonization is not enough to hold climate in check. It will either run out of control or require means of control not presently known (or at least well-understood at large scale) by humankind.
Incentives need to exist to get off of carbon, not to remain on it. It's critical to do this very soon. Now, really. As fast as is humanly possible or humanity is in for a much worse time than many imagine.
Folks in Ohio and the midwest and central parts of the US, should understand very clearly, as tornadoes and floods and droughts become stronger and more common in that area, that this is nothing to joke around with. We must decarbonize, and though that means getting quickly off of all carbon-based fuels, coal is among the worst.
To best understand the stakes in visceral terms, I very much recommend the book The Uninhabitable Earth. Or, if you're not a book reader, then try the National Geographic piece Six degrees could change the world.
So John McPhee books are generally pretty great and won't be too... much? For somebody just getting into it. The problem with most geology books is that they're going to get a little technical, and it can be easy to feel out of your depth (especially considering even basic terms aren't really taught in science classes in grade school). Anyway, Assembling California is a good one. Annals of the former world is another one by him that's really great, but it's a little thick.
There have to be some decent youtube videos, but even sites like Lynda don't have anything geology-wise.
If you want to get into it a little more casually, follow (legit) science groups/publications on social media. AGU is pretty active and posts on a wide variety of geologic topics (they have some good blogs, too); the NSF and NOAA also post cool stuff, but it's not specifically geology-related.
Honestly, your best bet is to try a class though. Geology is a pretty varied field, and even if intro-level courses are generally kind of... dumbed down (in a lot of schools they're called "rocks for jocks")? They'll still get you more than you might out of random googling.
Your story really resonates with my own growing up in Oklahoma.
I guess a lot of people on here look at their analysis as totally novel and "the thing" that will help save us all, if only everyone else could see it their way. I don't think that is the case, and nothing I say I will "save us," frankly I don't understand who it is that needs saving or why?
Cognitive Bias's are just fun little things that can help you see the world a bit differently, like a pair of glasses that makes things sometimes less blurry. I think they are also useful for your mood, at least for me, It puts me in a better mood when I can filter information a bit better and not get emotional about it.
For Climate Change, I recommend you read at "Hot Earth Dreams" if you happen to be looking for a possible picture of the a climate change ridden world, where not everyone dies, but there is no Utopian happy motoring left either.
https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Earth-Dreams-climate-happens/dp/1517799392
I don't know what Kenny means there. A bunch of stuff in Aristotle's scientific works is super relevant to understanding his general ontological outlook (i.e. his concept of substance), which is still philosophically relevant, since there's a contemporary resurgence in neo-Aristotlean metaphysics.
If you want to read the Physics, and if you don't have much background in Aristotle, I really recommend Joe Sachs' edition. He's able to make a lot of the key ideas super clear. His IEP entry on Aristotle's view of motion is a great overview of some of these ideas, and is worth reading as a starter to see if you want to delve into this stuff more deeply.
If you're interested in the Aristotle's way of thinking about things (natural and otherwise) more broadly, I can't reccomend Aryeh Kosman's The Activity of Being highly enough. It's at once an accessible and rigorous introduction to Aristotle's theoretical thought.
The Man Who Walked Through Time classic story of hiking the Grand Canyon.
http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Introduction-Physical-Geology-Edition/dp/0131148656
One of my Geology Texts - OK I was 2nd Ed. However, for my degree it wasn't great. I personally thought a good 16-18yr old book when studying geography and geology - when I got to Uni I bought the book and I'm not sure I got more from it than 10 or 20 pages.
> I remember someone stated that Earth has always had periods of warming and cooling.
It was not by accident that you just happened to hear this.
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Cover-Up-Crusade-Global-Warming/dp/1553654854/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347189033&amp;sr=8-14&amp;keywords=climate+change
Back to your question:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/12/previous-temperature-climate-change
More here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/
Yes I agree we should grow up and take responsibility for our actions.
It sounds like you're working on an interesting project, so the questions you spam us with would probably be interesting as well.
The standard textbook for undergraduates (at several universities that I know of) is Earth's Climate: Past and Future. It's great, lots of detail but also very approachable.
It can help to understand the climate change sceptic side too. Try Climate Change:the facts
Ah! Those were questions addressed to the original reader of my response to get them thinking. The readers consist of conspiracy theorists and family members/family friends whom the conspiracy theorists CC when they share these articles.
Confirmation bias surely plays a role, as does, in many cases, misinformation, as documented in: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/ and Hoggan and Littlemore's [Climate Cover-Up] (http://www.amazon.ca/Climate-Cover-Up-Crusade-Global-Warming/dp/1553654854).
John Cook's handbook is great, as is Oreskes and Conway's book (I've actually sent a copy along to one of the conspiracy theorists, not that I'm guessing it'll get read all the way through). I hadn't seen the Naomi Klein article, but I'm definitely going to check it out now. Thanks for passing that along!
This does not go much into detail about specific rocks but I think it is one of the best books about paleoclimate out there :
https://www.amazon.com/Earths-Climate-William-F-Ruddiman/dp/0716737418
I am reading Assembling california by John Mcfee
Hot Earth Dreams ++ It deserves wide readership.
https://www.amazon.com/d/Books/Dreams-severe-climate-change-happens-humans-survive/1517799392/ref=sr_1_1
10GtC/yr => 30GtCO2/yr as we work through the 1TtC of easily accessible fossil carbon until it's all gone and turned into the #terafart during the next 100 years. That will take 200k years for the Earth to process and re-absorb.
But still. Pay attention to time, space and scale. And the sub-title "What if severe climate change happens, and humans survive?" The humans race will not go extinct in this timescale and the collapse will happen over centuries and multiple generations, not decades and our lifetime. And we're clever. We will find ways to preserve knowledge and a technologically based civilisation. IMHO.
The Man Who Walked Through Time: The Story of the First Trip Afoot Through the Grand Canyon by: Colin Fletcher
Such a great book!
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Walked-Through-Time/dp/0679723064
Here is his translation of the Physics on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Physics-Guided-Masterworks-Discovery/dp/0813521920/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1346385001&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=physics+aristotle
I'm sure you were looking for PDFs or something, unfortunately I don't know of any links to those :\ I'd love a link if you actually found any!
He also wrote these articles online:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-poe/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-met/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-eth/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-mot/
But yeah, after reading Aristotle's Physics, I've come to a basic conclusion that his entire philosophical system emerged out of a refutation of Zeno's paradoxes—he spends the second half of the Physics destroying those arguments as well as big chunks of the Metaphysics (or so I hear). What's crazy is that most philosophy students (even graduate students!) only read the first half of the Physics! The first half is only his introduction to the refutation of Zeno in the second part (oh, by parts I mean the chapters before and those after the three middle, or 'topical' chapters, i.e. Time, Infinity, and one more that I can't remember right now—oh! two more: space and place). So yeah, I'd start with the last of the articles I posted up there (on Motion) and then go onto Metaphysics.
Hope that helps! :)
Cliff Mass is a well known Pacific Northwest weatherman and climate professor who wrote this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Weather-Pacific-Northwest-Cliff-Mass/dp/0295988479
And he writes a popular blog too:
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
Cliff Mass's blog and book are worth reading too.
So it sounds like you are looking for some thing at the pretty basic level?
For David Attenborough books, try something coffee-table-y like the Smithsonian Earth guide. It's about much more than geo, but it's got everything you listed above and lots of pretty pictures and interesting things.
For something more academic, but still introductory, try Understanding Earth. Easy to read yet descriptive. If you don't want to pay $120, try going back a couple of editions.
One more step up might be Planet Earth: Cosmology, Geology, and the Evolution of Life and Environment which has a few less pretty pictures and a few more maths (optional). Even though this book is supposedly "below" my educational level I still love it. I also wish I'd read it back when I was first starting down the scientific path - it really covers the basics of just about everything you'd every need to know.
[This book] (http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Michael-Allaby/dp/0789496437) is great for a general concept of a lot of things you'd learn in your BSc geology. It's not just geology, it also has info about the oceans and the atmosphere which you'd also encounter in your studies.
I'm not making an "evidence-based argument", retard. I'm telling you that I'm speculating.
Why do you care so deeply about this non-issue?
Read a book:
Climate Change: The Facts
>Ian Plimer draws on the geological record to dismiss the possibility that human emissions of carbon dioxide will lead to catastrophic consequences for the planet. Patrick Michaels demonstrates the growing chasm between the predictions of the IPCC and the real world temperature results. Richard Lindzen shows the climate is less sensitive to increases in greenhouse gases than previously thought and argues that a warmer world would have a similar weather variability to today. Willie Soon discusses the often unremarked role of the sun in climate variability. Robert Carter explains why the natural variability of the climate is far greater than any human component. John Abbot and Jennifer Marohasy demonstrate how little success climate models have in predicting important information such as rainfall.
Are you looking for a textbook? I like "Introduction to Mineralogy" by William Nesse. It's pretty comprehensive on mineral ID and info, including occurrence, alteration, uses, cleavage, etc.
> the NYT publishes so much BS
> the church of climate change
Yikes, your bias is showing. You might want to consider trying to learn atmospheric science from an actual textbook instead of letting right-wing blogs tell you what to think. I'd recommend this one or this one if your math is up to par, after which you could probably then move up to a graduate-level text like this one.
Thirding the suggestion for Nesse. I have this version, but the old text we keep in the lab has also been incredibly helpful, although it's nice to have coloured charts and more detailed diagrams. A new edition's supposed to come out soon from what I understand, but I could be wrong. Probably isn't going to be too different, though.
Wow, I'm surprised you followed up on this! yeah.. 100% chance of rain, high of 55. Just off by 20 degrees! hehe
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Yeah as a pretty avid/nutso outdoors weekend warrior year around for 7-8 years, the amount of time I spent (wasted, perhaps?) looking at the NOAA forecast, reading meteorological discussions, and trying to divine what weather would come by the weekend... my ultimate take away is that outside of that specific high pressure summer ridge that develops over the Pacific that gives us our glorious summers, the forecast is especially tough to rely on beyond a few days off, sometimes even less then 24hr out is not reliable. There's a few exceptions to this, the biggest I can think of is when we get the rare occurrence of snow in the winter there's usually a high pressure system in play, that can sometimes give a longer range of predictable weather (usually sunny, clear, and windy af from the east!). But that can last for a few days to a few weeks even sometimes.
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It's that air-mass colliding with the typical weather coming off the pacific that gives us the snow. The difficulty in predicting is that the ocean always wins that battle, eventually, but sometimes the situation is down to the last minute knowing if the colder inland air will hang on for X amount of time as the moist pacific air hits it.
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If you want to geek out on the weather I recommend this book by a meteorological professor up at UW in seattle. It's slightly washington centric but touches on the gorge and Oregon enough to make it plenty relevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Weather-Pacific-Northwest-Cliff-Mass/dp/0295988479
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let's just enjoy the rain tomorrow.. the weekend looks pretty decent!
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Just remembered another book that's worth looking into - Sedimentation and Stratigraphy if you want a good summary of sedimentary rocks etc
http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Introduction-Physical-Geology-8th/dp/0131148656/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1331078232&amp;sr=1-12
I've been self studying this book for some of my competitions - DOE science bowl/science Olympiad (high school senior) and I really like it. I found it recommended in this subreddit a while ago and decided to give it a go.
Brent Dalrymple's book, Age of Earth is also a good read.
Reflected light microscopy is a bit of a lost art. I was never taught it formally, and had to learn it later. You'll want to look for old used books, but for most silicates reflected light isn't the way to go. Are you looking at ore samples? Because that is really when it becomes useful.
This is my go-to book for mineral identification:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199827389/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687462&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=0199846278&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=JH49Y9MM8HG4CQ9X8A0G
The standard textbook that I think most of us have used in atmospheric dynamics classes is Holton but has a bit of steep learning curve, depending on your background. Another book, that I think is a bit better at easing you into the material is Wiley, and then theres Wallace & Hobbs which is more of an undergraduate book.
10 Billion by Stephen Emmott is a pretty chilling fact based read about population and resource use.
If you want the Johnnie perspective on that, I'd recommend reading Harvey Flaumenhaft's introductions to the Masterworks of Discovery books. You can read it online on Amazon with the Look Inside feature.
I, for one, find that reading math / science works in the original is interesting beyond the history, challenging and educational. YMMV.
Yes I have it actually. Very good visual guide. DK books are superb, there are a couple of others of theirs I have
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-History-Atlas/dp/1405302674/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324647974&amp;sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Earth/dp/0789496437/ref=pd_sim_b_6
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Human-Definitive-Guide-Our-Species/dp/140530233X/ref=pd_sim_b_4
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soldier-Reg-Grant/dp/1405344202/ref=pd_sim_b_21
All good
this is an overview of everything related to geology and earth science.. its and awesome book and goes into enough detail about everything and has tons of awesome pictures
http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Michael-Allaby/dp/0789496437
Sorry to bother you, but what field is that? Ancient Greek mathematics, or their physics?
To OP:
A little late I know, but I'd also have to recommend Galileo's Two New Sciences. Galileo requires a knowledge of parts of Aristotle's Physics, which I'd suggest anyway if you're interested in this. A quick note on that translation, Sachs is a very difficult but very rewarding translator, in my opinion. He focuses very closely on the Greek at the expense of using rather confusing language at times. If that's not what you're looking for, the standard translation (including standard vocabulary) is contained in this collection of Aristotle's works. Archimedes, as others have suggested, is great. Heath, the editor of that volume, is a fantastic scholar and his 3 volume edition of the Elements for anyone looking for an in depth knowledge of Greek geometry. Heath's two volume history of Greek mathematics is a must have as well for that subject. Newton is another very rewarding author (though the Principia is very challenging). You'd probably be looking for the Densmore edition of the Principia, which makes the Principia extremely more accessible.
The most obvious answer is all of the civilizations that spanned the period when Noah's flood was supposed to have happened:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_flood#Things_that_happened_during_the_Great_Flood
We have ice cores from places like Greenland:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/ice-core
Ice sheets are like enormous layer cakes. You get layers for the seasons. The layers trap what-eve is blown in on the wind. The wind carries dirt and pollen from across the world.
We have uninterrupted records of what was happening on the planet that reach back over 150,000 years:
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2010/07/31/oldest-greenland-ice-core-recovered/
We have very similar data from lake sediments:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/lake
And we have the same kind of data from sea floor sediments.
And we have rivers sediments. The rivers bring sediments into their deltas and that stuff stacks up thousands of feet deep for big rivers like the Mississippi.
We have very clear data that tells us that there was no global flood and no rearranging of the Earth's crust beyond the very slow plate tectonics that moves things at about the same rate that your fingernails are growing.
> I was under the impression that the many of the younger scientists have shifted away from uniformitarianism, and that the major difference between young-earth supporters and the long-age supporters is the timescale of events preceding the most recent series of global catastrophes.
Nah, that's just creationists trying to move the goal post.
Geology happens over periods of time that are mind boggling huge. Yes, there will be small events that happen suddenly. A volcanic eruptions here, a ruptured glacial dam there.
Aside from extremely rare events, things that happen on a >100 million year interval like the Chicxulub impactor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_impactor ) there simply aren't 'global catastrophes'.
There are things that happen over millions of years that can have big effects but it's moving the goal post to call those 'global catastrophes'. Firstly because they happen in a small region and their effect spreads out very slowly. And secondly, they're a long series of events that can literally span millions of years. There are very few example of this kind of thing. The Siberian Traps are probably the best know example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps
'Global Catastrophes' are the work of fiction.
Here's a link to what's probably the most enjoyable book I've ever read about how the field of geology evolved from the older fashioned views to the current view:
https://www.amazon.com/Assembling-California-John-McPhee/dp/0374523932
John McPhee has written an number of excellent books about Geology and a bunch of other fields. But I'd start there if I wanted to know more about the question you just asked.
Here is the mobile version of your link
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0898868092/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?pc_redir=T1 this is a good starting place. And pretty cheap as yell.
Hi, I graduated with a degree in Natural Resources a few years ago. Your basic 100 level courses are most likely going to be general science courses like Chemistry, Biology, and some math. Here are some of the books I used and enjoyed in my upper level courses, though you might not get into these for a few years yet: A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Evolution by Douglas Futuyma, The Economy of Nature by Robert Ricklefs, Introduction to Wildlife Management by Paul Krausman, The Origins of Modern Environmental Thought by J.E. de Steiguer.
I don't recommend you buy any of these textbooks, because your college probably will use different textbooks. Of course if you think they sound interesting or you find a cheap copy by all means go ahead, but many schools will use a slightly different version, or if your teacher is published, they may want to use their own books. I liked these ones and if you read it I'm sure you could learn a lot, but it might not all be relevant to what your current classes are.
Also I'm sure some of your books will depend on your part of the country, I went to school in the Southwest so many of my books are geared towards issues like water conservation and one of my favorite textbooks A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona, we also used Mammals of California, you might buy Mammals of North America and another local guide depending on where you are, I had to buy two (California and North America) for my mammalogy class.
I took a lot of elective biology classes for my general biology credits towards my degree. Your school may not have the same classes, or use the same textbook, or you may not be interested, but here are some other books I'd recommend. Most are 'fun' books and read more like a narrative and are normal book length instead of chapter books. You can learn from reading them but they are set out more like a story than a textbook crammed full of data. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg, The Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey, Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat, Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem & Jonathan Prince, Evolutionary Medicine Edited by Trevathan, Smith, & McKenna, Endgame by Derrick Jensen, Why We Get Sick by Randolph Nesse & George Williams.
Anyway hope this was useful and you got some good ideas, feel free to ask me for further information about anything! I don't think you should worry about being the oldest kid in your class, there are plenty of older people there than you and I think having a bit of maturity will help in your studies. Good luck!
A mineralogy textbook would be a good start, this is the one we used when I took the class (https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Mineral-Science-Cornelis-Klein/dp/0471721573). Or maybe this (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Mineralogy-William-Nesse/dp/0199827389), although I haven't read it myself.
Earths Climate: Past, Present and Future.
https://www.amazon.com/Earths-Climate-William-F-Ruddiman/dp/0716737418
Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ten-Billion-Stephen-Emmott/dp/0141976322/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373018022&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=ten+billion
and an extract from the book too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/30/population-growth-wipe-out-life-earth?guni=Keyword:news-grid%20aux-1%20Pixies:Pixies:Position9:anchor%20image
I'd guess Buzzfeed isn't a scientific source at all, but there's still no harm in calling it out. I just find the whole article's presentation of "shocking water use" is misleading, the facts are overly-distilled (sorry for pun) and set up for a misleading bias.
The article credits a book 10 Billion by Stephen Emmott for its data, and it seems that some reviewers have a similar opinion of the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Third-Douglas-J-Futuyma/dp/1605351156/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1421514838&amp;sr=1-7&amp;keywords=evolution
You might look at the age of the earth or plate tectonics. There is a good book on the age of the earth that goes through all of the evidence.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Age-Earth-Brent-Dalrymple/dp/0804723311
I can't think of an equivalent book on plate tectonics, but a number of geology textbooks go through the evidence for it.
Ah, sorry I misread. So, I'd say that's a drastic underestimate of the cost of doing nothing. See for example the paper linked by ILikeNeurons:
> combining realistic assumptions...increases the present social cost of carbon in the model nearly eightfold from US$15 per tCO2 to US$116 per tCO2. Furthermore, passing some tipping points increases the likelihood of other tipping points occurring to such an extent that it abruptly increases the social cost of carbon.
For a great overview of what it looks like, see the book Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, who read 3000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change and summarized them, one chapter per degree, with extensive references. Two degrees is grim, three is disastrous, and at four the survival of modern civilization starts to look shaky. Six doesn't look survivable at all.
Trouble is, somewhere around two degrees people think feedback effects will seriously kick in, and the planet will go several degrees further with no more help from us. The reason people think that is that geologists can see that it's happened before; small temperature increases caused by orbital variations have kicked off much larger warming cycles.
Read the linked papers:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but the debate is how potent of a climate gas CO2 is when added to our atmosphere. CO2 has increased from around 280 ppm in 1850 to around 410 in 2019 (due to human emissions), and in that time the temperature on earth has increased approximately 1 degC. Atmospheric CO2 looks to hit 560 ppm (double 1850-levels) late this century.
The potency of CO2 is expressed as "ECS"(Equilbrium Climate Sensitivity") in climate modeling. ECS expresses temperature increase at equilibrium from doubling CO2.
Due to climate's thermal inertia roughly half of a temperature change due to forcing is realized within 10 years, while 14-40% has still not arrived after a century. The IPCC in AR5 (2014) stated that ECS is "likely between 1.5 and 4.5" The climate models "CMIP5" cited by IPCC in AR5 have an average ECS of 3.2 *.
Lower ECS ~1.5 better fit satellite era observations. ECS can be estimated directly from data without climate models. AR5 WG1 stated "best fit to the observed surface and ocean warming for ECS values in the lower part of the likely range" (p.84). There is least uncertainty in temperature data after the start of satellite record ~1979, and for this timeframe ECS is estimated in 1.5-2 range [1], [2]
(In general, ECS-estimates vary based on temperature dataset**, choice of start- and end-dates, carbon-cycle*** modeling and warming attribution to other sources (overview)).
The significance of ECS=1.5 would be huge, implying almost no further warming this century. ECS of 1.5 will imply another 1.5-1=0.5 degC of eventual warming, while ECS=3.2 implies 3.2-1=2.2 degC eventual warming. ECS=1.5 thus implies four times less warming from CO2 increases this century than current IPCC models!
Removing multi-decadal oscillations from data yields ECS 0.5-1.5. Natural oscillations with multi-year periods such as El Niño(11y), AMO(~60y) and PDO(~50-60y) dominate data on the timescale since 1850. Climate models do not accurately [ch1.2] model these oscillations. Removing oscillations mathematically to isolate underlying warming results in much lower climate sensitivity than in AR5: ECS ~1.5,TCR ~1.2 on 150 years of instrumental data, and ECS=0.6 on ~1000 years of proxy-data. These papers remove oscillations without the need to attribute causes to them, but as some of the oscillations removed will be solar-induced, the work is related to the sections below.
Human CO2-emissions coincide with the end of the "Little Ice Age"(LIA) and with solar forcing transitioning from abnormally low to abnormally high. LIA had globally colder climate, coinciding with "Maunder" (1645-1715) and "Dalton"(1790-1830) solar minima. LIA average temperatures were 0.5-0.7 degC lower than Medieval Warm Period(MWP). 1850 at the end of LIA was unusually cold, is thus a poor baseline. Climate inertia should apply for solar as well as CO2-driven warming, implying a long post-LIA transient warming. Second half of the 20th century is the period of highest solar activity in the last 8000 years. A link between solar forcing changes and LIA/MWP has been found, so solar variation partially explaining modern warming up to the early 00ies is also plausible.
There is disagreement on if solar variability is "high variability" or "low variability"
Modeling solar activity is challenging because no direct measurements of solar variability exist prior to satellite record from ~1980, and because the record is "grafted" together from a data from many short-lived satellites, (review of challenges given in ch1).
CMIP5 uses a "low-variability" estimate of solar variation "PMOD" based on work by Kopp&Lean,
that has been strongly critized(ch9) for being an unverified theoretical model which implements alterations not recognized by the original experimental teams to drifts that are postulated but not verified. The alternative to "PMOD" are "high-variability" TSI-estimates such as that of Hoyt&Schatten that agree with "ACRIM" satellite data. Evidence that high-variability TSI-estimates are more accurate are:
Solar forcing variability is key to climate modeling, because just a 0.3% (5 W/m2) increase is enough to explain the 1 degC warming since 1850. TSI ~1360 W/m2 raises the earth's temperature from around -268 degC to 15 degC (283 degC), a gain of ~0.2 degC per W/m2.
"High-variability" TSI vary by 3-4 W/m2 over the past centuries, and could thus explain 50-80% of observed modern warming.
CMIP5 models are running hot as solar activity falls, indicating that variability in their solar forcing estimate is too low. Because solar forcing and CO2-concentrations co-incident rise 1850-2000, underestimating climate solar sensitivity would wrongfully raise CO2-sensitivity (ECS),explaining why:
Compensating for "high-variability" TSI-changes results in ECS<1.5. "Hoyt&Schatten" TSI-estimate results in ECS of 0.44. Paleo-analysis of climate, CO2 and sun variability similarly found ECS=0.5.
Persistent flaws in climate research are plausible, outside investigators have commented on the the tendency to downplay flaws in climate research and to withhold data requests.
* "TCR" (Transient Climate Response) is temperature change immediately after doubling CO2 gradually (before transients settle). TCR and ECS both express the potency of CO2, TCR is often lower than ECS by 30-40% (or 0.5-0.8 degC). TCR likely range is given as 1-2.5 degC in AR5.
** Estimates of ECS from data prior to 1979 require use of GIS/HADCRUT instrument records, adjusted by proprietary algorithms using climate models and homogenized which can create spurious warming. Audits of these datasets have uncovered data-quality issues, but datasets are generally hard to independently verify. The sea/surface global temperature record is only globally complete for the satellite era. A reason for skepticism is that recent warming is not corroborated by an accelerated sea level rise at tidal gauges. Prior to~1880 proxies are used, but suffer from «the divergence problem» of not describing recent warming.
***Carbon cycle simulations indicate TCR below 1
I'd start reading books such as Geology of the SF Bay Region and, one of my favorites, Assembling California. You might be able to borrow these from your uni.
These will give you a good start/background and from there find more detailed publications with maps on USGS website.
Even if it's just a friend who told you things, you're ahead of most people there. It's definitely worth getting a level 1 cert. if you're gonna be out in the BC at all, plus learning about avys is really fucking cool in my opinion. Also you can read some of the 'classic' books. For example:
Staying Alive in Avy Terrain
The Avy Handbook
Because once you know what you're doing and are confident, you can ski every day fairly safely.
It's not strictly about scientific consensus. There's a complex line of reasoning you have to agree with to get from the premise of rising CO2 levels to justifying policy targeted at reducing CO2 emissions.
The questions of what we can and should do in terms of government policy, determining a social cost of carbon, the trade-offs between emissions reduction and adaptation, etc. are not strictly scientific questions. The massive uncertainty makes it difficult to establish confidence that any reasonable proposed policies are going to have enough effects to justify the costs.
What you have presented as 'facts' are largely either of no relevance to the points I'm making, or broad summaries or news articles. I don't expect you to prove the case for emissions reductions in a few citations and you shouldn't expect me to refute them with more. There's a tsunami of information on climate change related topics out there and it has taken years for me to understand it as I do. There's obviously lots of information on the risks of climate change because nothing sells news like fear and it is an actual realistic doomsday scenario -- so we shouldn't be surprised to see dozens of articles on every study that remotely hints at some of the more catastrophic climate risks (and lots of funding for such studies). The scientists that think maybe it won't be so bad, or maybe natural variation plays more of a role in current warming than we think, don't make headlines ("everything might be OK" is not a good headline for selling news) and can even be marginalized by their peers for not trying to draw more attention to the issue. If you are genuinely interested in the skeptic argument, I can suggest reading some of the content on the Climate Etc. blog and the book Climate Change: The Facts. If you're a converted alarmist, you can easily dismiss them with a series of ad hominems on the authors, but if you accept the arguments in good faith, you might be a little more optimistic on the future of the climate.
Required reading for you and others like you, OP
https://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet-ebook/dp/B002RI9F0E
That and oil companies thought "climate change" sounded less scary than "global warming" so they pushed in every way they could to rebrand it. The scientific community was the last to embrace that change.
"Global warming" is the specific theory that greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere will increase overall energy in the system and, in turn, increase global temperatures. Since energy companies depend, at least in the short run, on us pumping out lots of greenhouse gases, that's a scary term for them.
"Climate change" sounds more ambiguous and removes the blame from anybody in particular. Heck, it might even be getting colder.
Edit:
For an unbiased source of the difference in meaning between the two words, see NASA
>Global warming: the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases.
>Climate change: a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on Earth.
For a discussion on how the oil industry, notably Exxon Mobile, pushed hard for the use of the second term over the first term, see this book