Experimenting on a small planet

This book is a thorough introduction to climate science and global change. The author is a geologist who has spent much of his life investigating the climate of Earth from a time when it was warm and dinosaurs roamed the land, to today's changing climate.

The Language of Science.- Geologic Time.- Putting Numbers on Geologic Ages.- Discovering Past Climate Change.- The Nature of Energy Received from the Sun - The Analogies with Water Waves and Sound.- The Nature of Energy Received from the Sun - Figuring out what Light really is.- Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum.- The Origins of Climate Science - The Idea of Energy Balance.- The Climate System.- What's at the Bottom of Alice's Rabbit Hole?.- Energy from the Sun - Long-term Variations.- Solar Variability.- Albedo.- Air.- HOH - The Keystone of Earth's Climate.- Greenhouse Gasses.- The Circulation of Earths Atmosphere and Ocean.- The Biological Interactions.- Sea level.- Global Climate Change - the (Geologically) Immediate Past.- Is there an Analog for the Future Climate?.- The Instrumental Temperature Record.- What is Expected in the 21st Century.- Beyond 2100 - The Return to Warm Earth.- Titanic Timeline.