Heidi Cullen, a climatologist perhaps most famous for being The Brainy One on The Weather Channel (as opposed to, say, Stephanie Abrams, The Smiling Babe), has a new book out titled The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet. I’m a diehard veteran of the Climate Change debate, and have read over a dozen books on the subject: Cullen’s is a good addition, focused mainly on the science of climate models. She argues forcibly that like weather forecasting, which has improved greatly in the last century, climate models have improved enormously in the last two decades, and they agree on the overall shape (or temp) of the future: It will be hot. Miserable hot. Drought hot. Hot with crazy storms. Here’s a quote:
“Ice cores collected form Antarctica and Greenland can be used to reconstruct climate hundreds of thousands of years ago, showing that the preindustrial amount f CO2—the level from A.D. 1000 to 1750—in the atmosphere was about 280 ppm, about 105 ppm below today’s value. The record indicates that the concentration of CO2 has increased about 36 percent in the last 150 years, with about half of that increase happening in the last three decades. In fact, the CO2 concentration is now higher than any seen in at least the past 800,000 years—and probably many millions of years before the earliest ice core measurement” (29-30).
Cullen makes an interesting, and ballsy, rhetorical move in the second half of the book: She includes forecasts for years such as Jan 2027 or August 2050. It’s threatening, scary material. And it goes against the grain of the “Oh, don’t worry,” mentality that seems, at the moment, pervasive.
- October 2023
- September 2023
- September 2021
- April 2020
- September 2019
- May 2019
- August 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- October 2017
- August 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- November 2016
- October 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- December 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- May 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
Recent Posts
- Aliens Among Us: Probing Hillbillies and Freaking Shut-ins, How Netflix’s “Encounters” and Hulu’s “No One Will Save You” Prep Us for the Coming Alien Apocalypse, Kind of
- My Life as a Bob Odenkirk Character: On How Watching Netflix’s Black Mirror episode “Joan Is Awful” Mimicked My Experience of Watching the AMC series Lucky Hank
- “Bobcats, Bobcats, Bobcats”: Animal Life and a Tribute to “Modern Family”
- “The North Water”: This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Moby Dick
- Day 25: On David Quammen's "Spillover": Terrific Book That Foretold Our Pandemic, Kind of
Recent Comments
No comments to show.