Surprisingly,  since the book was originally published in 2005, Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate has selected Thin Ice as one of the more interesting books to have crossed his desk in 2007. Gratifying as well, since it indicates that the book remains relevant to a team of people who truly understand climate science and the global warming issue.
Gavin alludes to the important role that Jim Hansen plays in Thin Ice. In fact, outside of the folks in Lonnie Thompson’s group, Jim is probably the most important scientist in that story: while Lonnie and his gang were going into the high mountains to retrieve some of the most convincing evidence there is that the Earth is getting warmer, Jim was explaining why. This sparked my interest and was part of the reason I approached him in early 2006 to ask if he would like to collaborate on the book that eventually became Censoring Science.
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RealClimate.org
21 December 2007
Books ’07
Filed under: Communicating Climate Climate Science- gavin @ 1:33 AM
We have a minor tradition of doing a climate-related book review in the lead up to the holidays and this year shouldn’t be an exception. So here is a round-up of a number of new books that have crossed our desks, some of which might be interesting to readers here. …
“Thin Ice” by Mark Bowen gets a big thumbs up as well. It is more or less a biography of Lonnie Thompson, but as I said in my review in BAMS, it is by no means limited to Thompson’s work. Much of the book focuses on various important figures in the history of the science of climate: Arrhenius, Tyndall, and Keeling among them. And while paleoclimatology takes the main stage, one could read this book alone for a very clear lay-persons understanding of the physics of the greenhouse effect, or for insight into the mind of the brilliant and provocative James Hansen, or the story or Roger Revelle and David Keeling’s measurements of carbon dioxide concentrations. It is notable that Bowen has a PhD from MIT, so is no newcomer to science. …
Happy holidays!
I read the book and would like to have seen some charts, graphs or other visual displays that would show how an increase in CO2 levels preceded global warming.
Also, what caused the increases in CO2 eons ago when no fossil fuel was dumping CO2 in the air.
Another question, doesn’t moisture vapor have a huge effect on heat dissipation? I live in South Texas and managed citrus operations for a number of years. On cold, low humidity nights we worried. But, even if a high thin cloud appeared over your operation, you were protected from radiation cooling and freezing.