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We live in a world increasingly vulnerable
to climatic shocks. Anxieties have been aroused by scientists,
acknowledged as experts in their field, warning of dire
peril. Some argue that the next ice age may be due to begin,
and could come upon us very quickly. Others believe that
the side effects of human activities may soon tip the balance
of world climate the other way and produce a climate warm
enough to melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps, raising
the sea level and drowning most of the world's great cities.
This important book by the internationally famous Hubert
Lamb examines what we know about climate, its impact on
human affairs now and in the historical and prehistoric
past, and how we may better understand the problem of climatic
fluctuations and changes.
Climate, History and the Modern World
is divided into three sections. The first gives a brief
introduction for the non-specialist, aided by maps and diagrams,
to our understanding of how climate works and how its behaviour
varies, as well as how the past record of climate can be
reconstructed. The causes of climatic variation are examined,
including the currently much debated topic of the influence
of human activity. The second section presents an outline
of 10,000 years of human history and development against
the background of what is now known of the climate's own
history. Professor Lamb discusses how climate may, and in
some cases clearly seems to, have influenced human history.
Finally, he reviews the implications of climatic vagaries
and change now and in the future in a world made increasingly
vulnerable to harvest failures because of population growth.
H. H. Lamb is Professor Emeritus in the
School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East
Anglia and was Founder and first Director of the Climatic
Research Unit, University of East Anglia.
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