With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change (38 page)

23. THE OCEAN CONVEYOR

Broecker's writings on the conveyor are extensive. Some key early papers are in Nature in 1994 (vol. 372, p. 421), Scientific American in 1995 (vol. 273, p. 62) and Science in 1997, (vol. 278, p. 1582). I interviewed him in late 2005. Schlesinger's paper appears on the Web site of the Dangerous Climate Change conference, along with Challenor's. Ruth Curry's paper on the great salinity anomaly was in Science, vol. 308, p. 1772. And Bryden's paper appeared in Nature, vol. 438, p. 655•

24. AN ARCTIC FLOWER

Alley splendidly describes the science of the Younger Dryas (and many other things) in his book The Two-Mile Time Machine (Princeton University Press, 2000). Read about how humans fared in William Burroughs' Climate Change in Prehistory (Cambridge University Press, 2005). The latest thinking on the emp tying of Lake Agassiz is in Eos, vol. 86, P. 465. Chiang's paper appeared in Climate Dynamics (vol. 25, p. 477). Alley explored events 8200 years ago in Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 24, P. 1123.

25. THE PULSE

The best study of the events of the Little Ice Age remains the book of that name by jean Grove (Routledge, 1988). Bond's pioneering work on "the pulse" and its links to the era appeared in Science (vol. 278, p. 1257 and vol. 294, p. 2130). His work is summarized at: www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news/2oo5/o7_I I_o5.htm. Read too Peter deMenocal's paper with Thomas Marchitto in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems (DOI: io.1o29/2003G0000598) and his essay "After Tomorrow" in Orion, Jan./Feb. 2oo5; plus Shindell's "Glaciers, Old Masters and Galileo" at: www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_o6/; and Christina Hulbe in Paleoceanography (vol. 19, PA 1004).

26. THE FALL

Useful analysis of how the Sahara became a desert include Robert Kunzig's "Exit from Eden" in Discovery, January 2000, Claussen's paper in Climate Change (vol. 57, p. 99), and deMenocal in Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 19, p. 347. Haarsma's theories are articulated in Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 32, L17702, DOI: to .1029/2005GLO23232; available at www.agu.org. DeMenocal looks at megadroughts through the late Holocene in Science (vol. 292, p. 667); and Richard Seager's study is at www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought.

27. SEESAW ACROSS THE OCEAN

The Bodele dust reservoir is discussed in Nature as "the dustiest place on Earth" (vol. 434, p. 816). I learned of Schellenhuber's ideas on links between the Sahara and the Amazon in conversations. They seem intuitively sensible but remain, so far as I know, unquantified.

28. TROPICAL HIGH

I interviewed Thompson at length about his career and ideas in 2005. There is also a highly readable book about him called Thin Ice by Mark Bowen (Henry Holt, 2005). Key publications include Climatic Change, vol. 59, p. 137, and Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 19, p. 19. His Web site is at: www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/ Icecore/GroupP.html#lonniethompson.

29. THE CURSE OF AKKAD

The story of Akkad and other tales of climate and civilization appear in The Winds of Change by Eugene Linden (Simon & Schuster, 2006). DeMenocal looks at the collapse of Akkad in Geology, vol. 28, p. 379. Weiss's original paper appeared in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 95, P. 534. Issar explores similar collapses in the Middle East at the time with Mattanyah Zohar in Climate Change: Environment and Civilization in the Middle East (Springer, 2004).

30. A CHUNK OF CORAL

I wrote about Dan Schrag's find and its implications for El Nino in New Scientist, 9 October 1999. He published his findings in Geophysical Research Letters (vol. 26, no. 20, p. 2139). El Nino has many chroniclers these days, including Richard Grove and John Chappell's El Nino: History and Crisis (White Horse Press, 2000) and El Nino in History by Cesar Caviedes (University Press of Florida, 2001). Rodbell's compelling paper is in Science (vol. 283, p. 516). Latif's modeling of El Nino's future appeared in Nature (vol. 398, p. 694). Read about the Peruvian potato farmers at www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/oo/oi/pleiades.html.

31. FEEDING ASIA

Mike Davis wrote passionately about the effects of El Nino and failed monsoons in the late nineteenth century in Late Victorian Holocausts (Verso, 2001). Overpeck's analysis of the monsoon's potentially troubled future appeared in Nature, vol. 421, P. 354. Analysis of the different interpretations of the links that sustain the monsoon emerged from conversations with Mark Cane, Broecker, Alley, Thompson, and others.

32. THE HEAT WAVE

The 2003 heat wave was summed up at: www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update 29.htm. The link to global warming was articulated by Allen in Nature (vol. 432, p. 61o). The study of Burgundy vineyards appeared in Nature (vol. 432, p. 289). Betts warned about the extra threat to cities in PNAS (DOI 10.1073/pnas .0400357101).

33. THE HOCKEY STICK

Read the IPCC summary for policymakers at: www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-OI.pdf. Early versions of the hockey stick were discussed in Nature (vol. 392, p. 779) and Geophysical Research Letters (vol. 26, no. 6, p. 759). Other write-ups of Mann's work and the controversy it created were included in Scientific American (March 2005, P. 34) and MotherJones (18 April 2005). McIntyre and McKitrick set out their case in 2003 in Energy and Environment, vol. 14, p. 751. Mann's side of the debate, with commentary from some critics, appears on a Web site run by him and others: www.realclimate.org. Recent scientific analyses of the debate include Osborn and Briffa in Science (vol. 311, p. 841).

34. HURRICANE SEASON

I spoke to Corky Perret for a feature in New Scientist, "Is Global Warming Making Hurricanes Stronger?" (3 December 2005). Webster's paper appeared in Science (vol. 309, p. 1844). Emmanuel first predicted a big increase in hurricane destruction in Nature in 1987 (vol. 326, p. 483). He was more sanguine when, with others, he reported in the Bulletin of theAmerican Meteorological Society in 1998 (vol. 79, p. 19), but returned to the barricades inNaturein 2005 (vol. 436, p. 686). Trenberth made his warnings earlier that year in Science (vol. 308, p. 1753). Gray's efforts to refute these claims were not carried in the major journals, but can be seen at his Web site: http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/. The story of "hurricane" Catarina is told at: www.met-office.gov.uk/sec2/sec2cyclone/catarina.html.

35. OZONE HOLES IN THE GREENHOUSE

Farman's landmark paper on the ozone hole appeared in Nature (vol. 315, p. 207). Crutzen discussed how lucky the world had been in his Nobel lecture (see chapter 4). Hermes's and Shindell's thoughts come from personal interviews in NyAlesund and New York, respectively. The mechanisms that might cause ozone depletion to produce rapid climate change were discussed by Hartmann et al. in PNAS, vol. 97, p. 1412.

36. THE DANCE

The debate between the polar and tropical schools has never been properly articulated in the journals, so this chapter is pieced together from interviews with the participants, many of them in New York. Goldstein's paper appears in Science (vol. 307, P. 1933). Crutzen's comments came from an interview I conducted.

37. NEW HORIZONS

Similarly, much of this chapter derives from conversations rather than written papers. The idea of a bipolar seesaw is discussed by David Sugden in Planet Earth, journal of the Natural Environment Research Council, in autumn 2005. Read about lakes beneath the Antarctic ice at: www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2oo6/ storyo1-26-o6.html. Recent changes to SAM are reviewed by King in Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 32, L196o4, DOI: 10.1029/2005GLo24o42; available at www.agu.org. Shindell's key papers appear in Science (vol. 284, p. 305 and vol. 294, p. 2149) with useful summaries at www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/2004ioo6/ and www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_04/.

CONCLUSION

My earlier book, Turning Up the Heat, long out of print, was published by The Bodley Head in 1989 and in paperback by Paladin later the same year.

APPENDIX

Much of what appears here was presented at the Dangerous Climate Change conference, whose proceedings can be found at www.stabilisation2oo5.com.

INDEX