Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

The Goldilocks Planet: The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Climate change is a major topic of concern today and will be so for the foreseeable future, as predicted changes in global temperatures, rainfall, and sea level continue to take place. But as Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams reveal in The Goldilocks Planet, the climatic changes we are experiencing today hardly compare to the changes the Earth has seen over the last 4.5 billion years.

Indeed, the vast history that the authors relate here is dramatic and often abrupt--with massive changes in global and regional climate, from bitterly cold to sweltering hot, from arid to humid. They introduce us to the Cryogenian period, the days of Snowball Earth seven hundred million years ago, when ice spread to cover the world, then melted abruptly amid such dramatic climatic turbulence that hurricanes raged across the Earth. We read about the Carboniferous, with tropical jungles at the equator and the Cretaceous Period, when the polar regions saw not ice but dense conifer forests of cypress and redwood, with gingkos and ferns. The authors also show how this history can be read from clues preserved in the Earth's strata. The evidence is abundant, though always incomplete--and often baffling, puzzling, infuriating, tantalizing, seemingly contradictory. Geologists, though, are becoming ever more ingenious at deciphering this evidence, and the story of the Earth's climate is now being reconstructed in ever-greater detail--maybe even providing us with clues to the future of contemporary climate change.

And through all of this, the authors conclude, the Earth has remained perfectly habitable--in stark contrast to its planetary neighbors. Not too hot, not too cold; not too dry, not too wet--"the Goldilocks planet."

[Description taken from the Oxford University Press's web site.]

Language: English

Pages: 256

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Release: April 11, 2012

ISBN: 0199593574

ISBN 13: 9780199593576

The Goldilocks Planet: The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Climate change is a major topic of concern today and will be so for the foreseeable future, as predicted changes in global temperatures, rainfall, and sea level continue to take place. But as Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams reveal in The Goldilocks Planet, the climatic changes we are experiencing today hardly compare to the changes the Earth has seen over the last 4.5 billion years.

Indeed, the vast history that the authors relate here is dramatic and often abrupt--with massive changes in global and regional climate, from bitterly cold to sweltering hot, from arid to humid. They introduce us to the Cryogenian period, the days of Snowball Earth seven hundred million years ago, when ice spread to cover the world, then melted abruptly amid such dramatic climatic turbulence that hurricanes raged across the Earth. We read about the Carboniferous, with tropical jungles at the equator and the Cretaceous Period, when the polar regions saw not ice but dense conifer forests of cypress and redwood, with gingkos and ferns. The authors also show how this history can be read from clues preserved in the Earth's strata. The evidence is abundant, though always incomplete--and often baffling, puzzling, infuriating, tantalizing, seemingly contradictory. Geologists, though, are becoming ever more ingenious at deciphering this evidence, and the story of the Earth's climate is now being reconstructed in ever-greater detail--maybe even providing us with clues to the future of contemporary climate change.

And through all of this, the authors conclude, the Earth has remained perfectly habitable--in stark contrast to its planetary neighbors. Not too hot, not too cold; not too dry, not too wet--"the Goldilocks planet."

[Description taken from the Oxford University Press's web site.]

Language: English

Pages: 256

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Release: April 11, 2012

ISBN: 0199593574

ISBN 13: 9780199593576

More books from Mark Williams

Clickers

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Girl I Left Behind

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Foreign Studies

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth

4.2/5 ( ratings)

7 Day Mind Balancing

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Wandering: What a Monk Can Teach You About Living from Nearly Dying

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The Celtic Myths that Shape the Way We Think

Magical Mayhem

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Accent on Achievement, Bk 1: Flute, Book & CD

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Calisthenics: Calisthenics Warrior Guide: Achieve the Physique of Your Dreams Through Bodyweight Exercises (Beginner Calisthenics, Bodyweight Mastery, Bodyweight Training, Lean Muscle)

3.2/5 ( ratings)

Multiple-Choice Quiz Book - general knowledge questions with multi-choice answers

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Critical Thinking: A Powerful Critical Thinking Guide: 20 Effective Strategies to Improve Critical Thinking and Decision Making Skills (Thinking Skills, ... Organization, Emotional Intelligence)

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Faster Natural Penis Growth: 5” To 7 ¼" In 36 Days - My 7 Biggest Mistakes plus Easy Natural Method I Used To Grow My Penis Faster

2.8/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?