Ice Age
John Gribbin, Mary Gribbin
Find this book at buch7.de | eurobuch.com | buchhandel.de | books.google.com ASIN=0141007303, Category: Science, Language: E, cover: 112, pages: 2003
"The 140-year story of how Ice Ages were finally understood, focussing on all the
bizarre personalities involved, all working in the face of public adversity.
'This readable little book work will make you glad you are not a whole lot colder.'"
--The Daily Telegraph
Book description
On 24 June 1837, Louis Agassiz stunned the learned members of the Swiss Society of
Natural Sciences by addressing them, in his role as President, not with an anticipated
lecture on fossil fishes, but with a passionate presentation on the existence of ice
ages. No one was convinced. He even dragged the reluctant members of the Society up
into the mountains to see the evidence for themselves, pointing out the scars on the
hard rocks left by glaciation (which some of those present tried to explain
away as having been produced by the wheels of passing carriages). Extraordinarily,
it would take a further 140 years before the ice age theory was fully proved and
understood. John and Mary Gribbin tell the remarkable story of how we came to
understand the phenomenon of ice ages, focusing on the key personalities obsessed
with the search for answers. How frequently do ice ages occur? How do astronomical
rhythms affect the Earth's climate? Have there always been two polar ice caps? Is it
true that tiny changes in the heat balance of the Earth could plunge us back into
full ice age conditions? With startling new material on how the last major Ice Epoch
could have hastened human evolution, "Ice Age" explains why the Earth was once covered
in ice - and how that made us human.
This is the European edition; the USA edition was sold out, last time I checked (Jan-2005).