The Two-Mile Time Machine : Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future

Rating:
Summary: Superb presentation of solid (ice) science
Review: The remarkable discovery of abrupt climate change is presented at what I considered just the right level. The annotated bibliography refers the reader to the original research papers. The acknowledgements are a graceful and detailed tribute to the author's colleagues. No superfluous material. The author's scientific personality shines through. This is the most enjoyable science book I've read in the past few years.

Rating:
Summary: Superb presentation of solid (ice) science
Review: The remarkable discovery of abrupt climate change is presented at what I considered just the right level. The annotated bibliography refers the reader to the original research papers. The acknowledgements are a graceful and detailed tribute to the author's colleagues. No superfluous material. The author's scientific personality shines through. This is the most enjoyable science book I've read in the past few years.

Rating:
Summary: The Two Mile Times Machine
Review: The Two Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future written by Richard B. Alley is an engrossing book about how do we get to take a look at our past. What this book is about, global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland.

Now, this sounds like a way to our past via the ice cores. We can measure the oxygen content of the atmosphere when the snow was laid down, we can get a sample of the dust in the snow. We can tell that the last ice age ended very abruptly, only three years, all from core samples in Greenland.

But what they found that intrigues me moreover is that the earth goes into deep freezes alternating briefly with mild conditions. Man has been keeping records of the weather for approximately 200 years and we've expierenced unusually temperate climates... what happens if we go into the deep freezer. Drilling down two miles into the ice, they found atmospheric chemiand dust the enabled then to construct a record of such phenomena as wind patterns and precipitation over the past 110,000 years.

This is a well-written book with a pleasing narrative keeping the read interested in the subject matter. It provides an excellent survey for the general reader and those interested in the history of scientific exploration.

The explaination of the discovery process in terms the general reader can understand is one of the benefits of this book. The author does this to really open up the flow of knowledge about a subject that could put readers to sleep. We need to know and understand what happened in the past to face the challenges of the future.

Rating:
Summary: The Two Mile Times Machine
Review: The Two Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future written by Richard B. Alley is an engrossing book about how do we get to take a look at our past. What this book is about, global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland.

Now, this sounds like a way to our past via the ice cores. We can measure the oxygen content of the atmosphere when the snow was laid down, we can get a sample of the dust in the snow. We can tell that the last ice age ended very abruptly, only three years, all from core samples in Greenland.

But what they found that intrigues me moreover is that the earth goes into deep freezes alternating briefly with mild conditions. Man has been keeping records of the weather for approximately 200 years and we've expierenced unusually temperate climates... what happens if we go into the deep freezer. Drilling down two miles into the ice, they found atmospheric chemiand dust the enabled then to construct a record of such phenomena as wind patterns and precipitation over the past 110,000 years.

This is a well-written book with a pleasing narrative keeping the read interested in the subject matter. It provides an excellent survey for the general reader and those interested in the history of scientific exploration.

The explaination of the discovery process in terms the general reader can understand is one of the benefits of this book. The author does this to really open up the flow of knowledge about a subject that could put readers to sleep. We need to know and understand what happened in the past to face the challenges of the future.

Rating:
Summary: Timely and important information about climate change
Review: The whole issue of global warming has seemed confusing to the ordinary punter. On the one hand we hear dire warnings, on the other we also hear that "the jury is still out". This book was written by a scientist who was involved in analysing the information provided by ice cores during "three trips to Antarctica, five trips to Greenland, and countless hours in frozen laboratories". He knows what he is talking about. In this book he explains for the lay reader why the two-mile ice cores obtained from Greenland are so important, what they tell us about the Earth's climate in the past (and how this information is supported by other climate records), and what they suggest about the Earth's climate in the future.

The ice core data is recent and very important. I think that anyone having read this book will be up to date with the latest scientific data on climate change and its scientific justification. While some of the information is rather technical, the author has successfully attempted to make it understandable, interesting and relevant for the non-scientist.

Rating:
Summary: No unifying theme
Review: While this book is a nice quick read, I find that it lacks unity. Alley spends much time discussing the 'conveyor belt' of ocean currents, and how it's shutdown causes world cooling. However, in later sections he states that greenhouse gases will likely warm the planet. This contradicts his earlier statements that short term warming causes ice melting, shutting down the ocean currents, and utimately _cooling_ the earth - possibly even putting it in an ice age.

If anything, the book is a mosaic of the tools scientists use to try and study earth's climate. However, what one takes away from this book is that we really don't know how it works -we just have good ideas. The final chapters are laden with comments about how we have no idea what the future holds in terms of climate. This detracts from the earlier discussion since it seems like we have no reason to believe Alley.

The analogies used in this book are also quite poor. Please give your readers some credit. The analogies are so dummed down that they are outright ridiculous. They would be appropriate for a 10-year old (or younger).