Product Description

This book tells the exciting story of the ice ages--what they were like, why they occurred, and when the next one is due. The solution to the ice age mystery originated when the National Science Foundation organized the CLIMAP project to study changes in the earth's climate over the past 700,000 years. One of the goals was to produce a map of the earth during the last ice age. Scientists examined cores of sediment from the Indian Ocean bed and deciphered a continuous history for the past 500,000 years. Their work ultimately confirmed the theory that the earth's irregular orbital motions account for the bizarre climatic changes which bring on ice ages.

This is a tale of scientific discovery and the colorful people who participated: Louis Agassiz, the young Swiss naturalist whose geological studies first convinced scientists that the earth has recently passed through an ice age; the Reverend William Buckland, an eccentric but respected Oxford professor who fought so hard against the ice-age theory before accepting it; James Croll, a Scots mechanic who educated himself as a scientist and first formulated the astronomic theory of ice ages; Milutin Milankovitch, the Serbian mathematician who gave the astronomic theory its firm quantitative foundation; and the many other astronomers, geochemists, geologists, paleontologists, and geophysicists who have been engaged for nearly a century and a half in the pressing search for a solution to the ice-age mystery.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39693 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-19
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
Such a full and interesting treatment of this subject was long overdue. (New York Times )

An absorbing account of one of the great quests of geologic science. (Science )

Customer Reviews

Story of how science figured out the Ice Ages
This relatively short book is a history of how science, first, figured out that the Ice Ages happened at all, and, second, figured out why they happened. The book proceeds by telling the stories of the individual scientists who did the critical work, and how their work progressed. Personally, I always find it interesting to hear how what is now presented as objective, bloodless fact was discovered through a process mixing great logic, reasoning power and fact-finding with periodic global cat fights between rival gangs of scientists. In this book, I found it particularly fascinating to hear why scientists denied the existence of the Ice Ages for a long time. The idea of a mile-high wall of ice covering much of the Earth is, after all, pretty hard to believe on the face of it.

The current scientific explanation of the Ice Ages, incidently, is that it is due to a complex cycle of changes which arise out of periodic changes in the tilt of the Earth and the shape of its orbit. Even describing that particular theory is complicated. Imbrie does a good job explaining it though.

A good read.

Historical and Astronomical foundations.
This book is a readable account of the historical explanations for the ice ages. It provides some details of the lives of those involved in the building of the theory and the issues encounter in bring it to the front on science. The book also provide details on the current theory including the geological and astronomical evidence to support it. In addition in the last short section attempts to project in to the future what should be expected and a little of what is occurring that may change that. If you wish to know about the current ice age theory this is certainly one book to consider.

popular science
This book which concerns with ice age imaginary, is the best one that I have ever read. From the beginning of the classical time to modern investigations, it is explained how the ice age idea have been developed. It has detail explanations and some figures that are useful for imaginary.