Ice Age: How a Change of Climate Made Us Human (Penguin Press Science S.) - Softcover

Gribbin, John

4.03

350 ratings by Goodreads

9780141007304: Ice Age: How a Change of Climate Made Us Human (Penguin Press Science S.)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141007303 ISBN 13: 9780141007304

Publisher: Penguin, 2003

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For years scientists refused to believe that Ice Ages existed. In fact the idea that the Earth could once have been covered with ice only emerged in the 1830s. And even then the idea was seen as extremely eccentric. Amazingly, it was not until themid-1970s that Ice Ages were fully understood. John and Mary Gribbin tell this 140-year story, focussing on the bizarre personalities involved, all working in the face of public adversity - including a Glaswegian janitor who was able to use the Andersonian Museum library to do his own amateur research.

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Review:

"So you think it's cold now? This readable little work will make you glad you are not a whole lot colder. John and Mary Gribbin's pithy book tells us we are lucky not to be living under the heavy mantle if ice and snow which permanently covered Scotland and the north of England 10,000 years ago" - The Daily Telegraph

Synopsis:

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.

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