Climate Change: Evidence and Causes

by U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Royal Society

"Climate Change: Evidence and Causes" is a jointly produced publication of The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society. Written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, the publication is intended as a brief, readable reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and other individuals seeking authoritative information on the some of the questions that continue to be asked.
"Climate Change" makes clear what is well-established and where understanding is still developing. It echoes and builds upon the long history of climate-related work from both national academies, as well as on the newest climate-change assessment from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It touches on current areas of active debate and ongoing research, such as the link between ocean heat content and the rate of warming.

Genres: Science, Climate Change, Environment, Nonfiction

36 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2014

Reviews

[Scot Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This booklet leaves out a lot of details about our understanding of the climate system, but that is necessary due to its short length. In terms of density of information, this booklet can't be beaten. It presents an overview of the evidence we have concerning climate change and its causes at a level accessible to anyone with a general education in the sciences. For a more thorough explanation of climate change and its causes, the Working Group 1 section of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report is freely available at climatechange2013.org. The report summarizes all of the peer-reviewed research on climate change up to the time of preparation of the report and was created by scores of climate scientists. The report itself exceeds a thousand pages. If that seems daunting, there's a much shorter technical summary and an even shorter summary for policymakers. The science is out there, and freely available.

As an aside, there are two more sections of the IPCC report for those interested - Working Group 2's report presents impacts, adaptations, and vulnerability to climate change and Working Group 3's report presents mitigation. All three sections can be found at www.ipcc.ch

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compact, economic overview of the recent climate science. The format is a Q&A with easy to understand summaries of science and plain graphs. Some samples:

How do scientists know that recent
climate change is largely caused by
human activities?

Scientists know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities from an
understanding of basic physics, comparing observations with models, and fingerprinting
the detailed patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural influences.

and

If the world is warming, why are some
winters and summers still very cold?

Global warming is a long-term trend, but that does not mean that every year will be
warmer than the previous one. Day to day and year to year changes in weather patterns
will continue to produce some unusually cold days and nights, and winters and summers,
even as the climate warms.

There is so much out there to read and consider from the scientific community on this front. This is a real nice digest version with only like a couple of dozen of actual pages to read.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This booklet does exactly what is intended, provides fact based answers to common questions regarding climate change. It is clean cut and easy to understand while avoiding opinion based answers or feelings of any kind.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book(let) does what many other publications on the topic fail to do: it just covers the science, without becoming prescriptive or normative. Better still, it does so in a way that's accessible to anyone who's had a high school science class. It's primarily organized as a FAQ guide, addressing many of the common questions and misconceptions brought up among the general public regarding climate science.

I would recommend this guide to everyone, but particularly to those who are interested in what climate scientists are actually saying about climate change rather than what pundits are saying. Given the amount of misinformation that's out there on this topic, why not get the story from the scientists themselves? It's only after we can all acknowledge the realities science is showing us about climate change that we can start the debate about what, if anything, we as a society choose to do about it. So happy reading!

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The booklet gives a concise (36 pages) introduction to the science of man-made climate change. In such a short length, it cannot go into detail on each of the many complex topics it mentions; a person would have to read dozens of additional scientific books to gain a fuller understanding, let alone real expertise. But it would be nice if anyone who imagines himself or herself to be smarter than all the real science experts could at least read this book (or any climate science book), if only to avoid repeating the howlers routinely emanating from the climate science denial folklore community.

The National Academies Press sells the hard copy version of this booklet, while making the PDF and HTML versions available for free downloading and online reading, respectively. Thus there is no excuse for climate science deniers to remain willfully ignorant of the well-supported science they deny.

[Louisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing new in here, but a very brief, very readable overview of the evidence for global warming and what causes it, written by scientists for laymen. A good reference to keep handy when getting into a discussion with climate sceptics, though there aren't many where I live.

[Brian Bigelow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a good job at explaining global warming and what causes it. If you're interested in the subject I recommend reading the book. It makes the underlying science very accessible.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Discursive and not Prescriptive.

[Sean Hackbarth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast, easy way to understand the conventional wisdom about this issue--no matter what your opinion of it is.