Climate, History and the Modern World

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ISBN: 9780415127349 | 0415127343
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 8/16/1995

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In this internationally acclaimed book, Hubert Lamb explores what we know about climate, how the past record of climate can be reconstructed, the causes of climatic variation, and its impact on human affairs now and in the historical and prehistorical past. This second edition incorporates important new material on recent advances in weather forecasting, global warming, the ozone layer, pollution and population growth. Providing a valuable introduction to the problems and results of the most recent research activity, this book extends our understanding of the interactions between climate and history and discusses implications for future climatic fluctuations and forecasting.

List of illustrations

List of tables

xvii

Acknowledgements

xviii

Preface

xxi

Preface to the second edition

xxiii

Introduction

(7)

The Climate Problem

(15)

Climate defined

(1)

Early writing about climate and history

(1)

Climate viewed as constant

(2)

The effect on research and the development of knowledge

(11)

Part I The development of climate

How Climate Works

(29)

How climate is generated: basic matters

(1)

The heat supply

(3)

The world's wind circulation

(3)

Weather systems

(5)

Transport of moisture and pollution by the winds

(1)

Variations of the wind circulation

(2)

World-wide relationships of weather variations

(1)

Convection and temperature change with height

(1)

Tornadoes

(2)

Tropical storms, typhoons

(2)

Seasonal changes

(2)

World rainfall: distribution, seasonal changes, monsoons

(6)

How Climate Comes to Fluctuate and Change

(22)

Variations of the prevailing winds and their effects

(4)

Changes in the ocean

(6)

More basic matters

(8)

Volcanic dust in the atmosphere

(4)

Astronomical cycles affecting the heat supply

(2)

Other cycles

(1)

Cycles in the sun's activity

(1)

The heating pattern and reconstruction of past climates

(1)

The rapidity of some climatic changes

(4)

How we can reconstruct the past record of climate

(37)

Meteorological instrument records

(6)

Other records of past climates

(31)

Diaries, annals, chronicles, etc.

(9)

Grain prices records

(1)

Varieties of `fossil' records showing yearly layers

(4)

Radiocarbon dating and its role in dating evidence

(2)

Pollen analysis and vegetation history

(1)

The post-glacial record and evidence from beetles

(2)

Archaeology

(1)

Tree rings

(2)

Ocean bed deposits

100

(11)

Part II Climate and history

Climate at the Dawn of history

111

(14)

The ice age world and the peopling of the Americas and Australia

111

(3)

The end of the ice age world

114

(1)

The rising sea level and its effects

115

(1)

Human migrations

116

(3)

The beginnings of agriculture and the herding of animals

119

(2)

The shift of the vegetation zones and their faunas, the ranges of birds and of fish in the sea

121

(1)

Climate and cultural changes in prehistoric times

121

(1)

The warmest post-glacial times in north Africa: the moist Sahara and its ending; contemporary changes in Europe and North America

122

(3)

In the times of the early civilizations

125

(14)

The warmest post-glacial times: development of the deserts of Asia and the river valley civilizations

125

(5)

The Indus valley and its civilization

130

(2)

Ancient China

132

(1)

The situation in Europe and other northern regions

132

(7)

Times of disturbance and decline in the Ancient world

139

(17)

The turning point in post-glacial climate development

139

(1)

Records of the down-turn of climate

140

(6)

Effects on European lake settlements and mining in the mountains

146

(1)

Effects in northern lands

147

(1)

Effects in the eastern Mediterranean and Hither Asia

148

(2)

Effects in China

150

(1)

Comparisons with low and high latitudes

150

(2)

Details from northwest Europe

152

(2)

The time of birth of great religions

154

(2)

Roman times and after

156

(15)

The Mediterranean world in Roman times

156

(3)

Links with the east: times of trade and of migrations

159

(3)

Critical disease epidemics

162

(1)

Sea level and coastal changes in northern Europe

162

(3)

The climatic sequence in Europe through the first millennium AD

165

(3)

The sequence in the Mediterranean and farther south

168

(1)

The tropical forest lands: Central America and southeast Asia

169

(2)

Through Viking Times to the High Middle Ages

171

(16)

Asymmetry of the medieval warmth over the northern hemisphere

171

(1)

The medieval sequence in northern Europe and the northern Atlantic

172

(5)

The peak of medieval warmth in Europe

177

(5)

The contemporary scene in the Mediterranean, eastern Europe and Asia

182

(3)

Effects on sea level and low-lying coasts

185

(1)

The sequence in North America and some comparisons

185

(2)

Decline Again in the late middle ages

187

(24)

The down-turn of climate in the Arctic

187

(4)

How Europe was first affected: storms

191

(4)

Cooling and wetness in early fourteenth-century Europe

195

(4)

A time of diseases

199

(1)

Desertion of farms and village settlements

200

(2)

The sequence in the north of Europe: Norway, Denmark, Scotland

202

(4)

Central, southern and eastern Europe

206

(1)

Developments in Africa and India

207

(2)

The sequence in North America: how the pre-European cultures were affected

209

(2)

The Little Ice Age: Background to the History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

211

(31)

The sixteenth century

211

(1)

The changes in central Europe: 1500s to 1800s

212

(4)

Iceland and the Arctic fringe

216

(1)

Great storms and coastal floods in Europe

217

(2)

Effects in Scotland

219

(5)

Scandinavia and Finland

224

(3)

Fisheries and the seafaring nations of northern Europe

227

(1)

Harvests and health in England

228

(1)

The variability of weather in the Little Ice Age

229

(1)

Notable winters and summers in Europe

230

(3)

Artists' impressions

233

(2)

Southern Europe, north Africa and India

235

(1)

The Far East

236

(4)

North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

240

(2)

The Recovery, 1700 to Around 1950

242

(25)

Some aspects of the Little Ice Age world

242

(1)

Warming sets in erratically

243

(2)

Developments in agriculture

245

(1)

Further climate disturbance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

246

(3)

Charles Dickens and the artists as climate reporters

249

(2)

Towards the mid-nineteenth century and the beginnings of the great recession of the glaciers

251

(1)

The Irish potato famine

252

(1)

Mid-nineteenth century in the United States

253

(1)

Europe and the Arctic fringe

253

(1)

Towards the end of the century

254

(6)

The twentieth-century warmth

260

(7)

Part III Climate in the modern world and questions over the future

Climate Since 1950

267

(16)

Another turning point

267

(1)

Variability increases

267

(4)

Cooling in the Arctic

271

(2)

World temperature

273

(2)

Effects on rainfall

275

(3)

Effects on glaciers, ice-sheets and sea level

278

(1)

Monitoring the development of world climate

279

(4)

The Impact of climatic developments on human affairs and human history

283

(36)

General introduction

283

(3)

Impacts of the first order

286

(2)

More complex consequences

288

(4)

Effects on grain harvests

292

(4)

Details from Switzerland in the eighteenth century

296

(2)

The time around 1816

298

(2)

1879 and the decline of British agriculture

300

(1)

Food shortages in modern times

300

(6)

The experience of 1972

306

(2)

Technology, climate and food supply

308

(3)

Climate and disease outbreaks

311

(3)

The impacts of flooding and bitter winters

314

(2)

Other aspects

316

(3)

The Causes of Climate's Fluctuations and Changes

319

(27)

General

319

(1)

Variations of the sun

320

(2)

Variations in the Earth's orbit

322

(1)

Volcanic dust in the atmosphere

323

(4)

Variations of the circulation and heat distribution in the atmosphere and oceans

327

(2)

Impacts on the climate of various human activities

329

(1)

Devices to alter the climate and environment

330

(3)

The increase of carbon dioxide

333

(3)

Other effluents from human activities

336

(1)

The net effect

337

(3)

Effects in industrial and urban areas

340

(6)

Forecasting

346

(23)

The development of daily weather forecasting

346

(1)

Longer-term forecasting

347

(2)

Clusters of like years

349

(2)

The development of climate

351

(1)

Cyclical developments

351

(3)

Forecasts of the natural climate

354

(5)

Possible effects of human activity and policy decisions

359

(8)

Concluding summary

367

(2)

What can we do about it?

369

(14)

Perception and response

369

(2)

Approaches to climate forecasting and their usefulness

371

(3)

International efforts needed to improve knowledge

374

(2)

The lessons of history

376

(1)

The need for flexibility, diversification and margins of safety in agriculture and energy policy

377

(3)

The challenges of today and the future: watchfulness, understanding and realism

380

(3)

Recent Developments and the outlook

383

(10)

The mid-twentieth-century cooling

383

(1)

The unrelenting growth of the world's human population

384

(1)

The more or less world-wide warmth of the twentieth century, exceeding that of most recent centuries

385

(1)

The developing ozone holes

386

(1)

Pollution

387

(1)

Windiness and storms

388

(2)

Recurring oscillations in large-scale weather patterns

390

(3)

Notes

393

(19)

Suggestions for further reading

412

(1)

Additional further reading for the second edition

413

(1)

Index

414

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Climate, History and the Modern World

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials