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The second edition of this book has been completely updated. It studies the history and gives an analysis of extreme climate change on Earth. In order to provide a long-term perspective, the first chapter briefly reviews some of the wild gyrations that occurred in the Earth's climate hundreds of millions of years ago: snowball Earth and hothouse Earth. Coming closer to modern times, the effects of continental drift, particularly the closing of the Isthmus of Panama are believed to have contributed to the advent of ice ages in the past three million years. This first chapter sets the stage for a discussion of ices ages in the geological recent past (i.e. within the last three million years, with an emphasis on the last few hundred thousand years).
List of contents
Preface.- 1. Life and climate in an ice age.- 2. Variability of the Earth's climate.- 3. Ice core methodology.- 4. Ice core data.- 5. Ocean sediment data.- 6. Other data sources.- 7. Summary of climate variations.- 8. Overview of the various models for ice ages.- 9. Variability of the Earth's orbit: astronomical theory.- 10. Comparison of astronomical theory with data.- 11. Future prospects.- 12. Abbreviations.- 13. References.
About the author
Donald Rapp has had a long and varied science and engineering career with 48 years of experience after receiving his Ph. D. from the University of California in January, 1960. He was a professor for 14 years, and achieved the rank of full professor at age 40. Over the years, he has developed a unique talent to move into a field, research it thoroughly, and write an incisive, perceptive summary of the field. His capabilities are widely sought for writing summary technical reports and technical proposals.
He has published many scientific papers and five text books: Quantum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics, Solar Energy, Human Missions to Mars, and Assessing Climate Change. The Mars and Climate books were published by Praxis Publishing, so Praxis/Springer is familiar with my abilities.
His five books are summarized at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~drdrapp/
Report
From the reviews of the second edition:
"A complete summary of the most up-to-date information and theories of the history and causes of Quaternary climate change. ... In the hands of an experienced researcher, this book offers some excellent and insightful critique of established concepts, theories and methodologies, and explores the issue of correlation versus causation in a number of key areas of palaeoclimatology ... . offers a very different perspective and insight into topics that many Quaternary scientists perhaps wrongly assume are no longer controversial." (Simon Carr, The Holocene, Vol. 24 (7), 2014)
"Scientist/engineer Rapp ... has thoroughly revised the first edition of this book ... . The volume consists of 11 chapters, 24 pages of references, and a 6-page index. It is profusely illustrated with a combination of color and black-and-white maps and graphs in addition to 11 data tables. ... the book contains a wealth of data. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and graduate students." (J. T. Andrews, Choice, Vol. 50 (7), March, 2013)
