The Warming Papers The Scientific Foundation for the Climate Change Forecast

Global warming is arguably the defining scientific issue of modern times, but it is not widely appreciated that the foundations of our understanding were laid almost two centuries ago with the postulation of a greenhouse effect by Fourier in 1827. The sensitivity of climate to changes in atmospheric CO 2 was first estimated about one century ago, and the rise in atmospheric CO 2 concentration was discovered half a century ago. The fundamentals of the science underlying the forecast for human-induced climate change were being published and debated long before the issue rose to public prominence in the last few decades.The Warming Papers is a compendium of the classic scientific papers that constitute the foundation of the global warming forecast. The paper trail ranges from Fourier and Arrhenius in the 19 th Century to Manabe and Hansen in modern times. Archer and Pierrehumbert provide introductions and commentary which places the papers in their context and provide students with tools to develop and extend their understanding of the subject.The book capture the excitement and the uncertainty that always exist at the cutting edge of research, and is invaluable reading for students of climate science, scientists, historians of science, and others interested in climate change.

David Archer is a Professor in Geophysical Sciences, and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union. His research pertains to the global carbon cycle and its relation to Earth's climate in the past and the future. Archer is the author of The Long Thaw: How humans are changing the next 100,000 years of Earth's climate (Princeton University Press, 2008), an undergraduate text book called Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast (Blackwell, 2006), and a summary guide to the IPCC Fourth Scientific Assessment Report called The Climate Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Ray Pierrehumbert is the Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the Republic of France. Pierrehumbert studies the physics of climate, especially regarding the long-term evolution of the climates of Earth, Mars.Venus, Titan and extrasolar planets. Pierrehumbert was an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report (1997-2001), and a member of the National Research Council's Panel on Abrupt Climate Change and its Societal Impacts (2000-2001), and is currently serving on the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate, and the National Research Council Panel on CO₂ Stabilization Targets.