A World Without Ice
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A co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize offers a clear-eyed explanation of the planet’s imperiled ice.
Much has been written about global warming, but the crucial relationship between people and ice has received little focus—until now. As one of the world’s leading experts on climate change, Henry Pollack provides an accessible, comprehensive survey of ice as a force of nature, and the potential consequences as we face the possibility of a world without ice.
A World Without Ice traces the effect of mountain glaciers on supplies of drinking water and agricultural irrigation, as well as the current results of melting permafrost and shrinking Arctic sea ice—a situation that has degraded the habitat of numerous animals and sparked an international race for seabed oil and minerals. Catastrophic possibilities loom, including rising sea levels and subsequent flooding of lowlying regions worldwide, and the ultimate displacement of millions of coastal residents. A World Without Ice answers our most urgent questions about this pending crisis, laying out the necessary steps for managing the unavoidable and avoiding the unmanageable.
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A member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, Univ. of Mich. geophysicist Pollack (Uncertain Science) shares the warning call of Al Gore (his co-recipient), that "humanity has arrived at an historic moment of decision." According to science, Pollack explains, humanity may soon lose the polar ice caps altogether, with dire consequences. Pollack explains how glacial ice is "a major player" in the climate: snow and ice "account for much of the sunshine reflected from the surface" and their disappearance will only accelerate the rate of global warming. Using geological evidence (800 bore-holes drilled on the earth's continental crust), Pollack and his colleagues have established that the past 500 years have seen a 2-degree increase in the Earth's average temperature, and that "fully half of the warming occurred in the 20th century." While taking account of countervailing forces (like periodic variations in the earth's orbit, explosive volcanism, and changes in solar radiation) Pollack shows that no single natural force can reverse the present trend, which if unchecked will render the Earth uninhabitable. This important wake up call joins a rapidly growing selection; this volume distinguishes itself with a Nobel pedigree and a sound, straightforward approach.
