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The Climate Demon
Past, Present, and Future of Climate Prediction

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  • Date Published: January 2022
  • availability: In stock
  • format: Paperback
  • isbn: 9781009018043

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About the Authors
  • Climate predictions - and the computer models behind them - play a key role in shaping public opinion and our response to the climate crisis. Some people interpret these predictions as 'prophecies of doom' and some others dismiss them as mere speculation, but the vast majority are only vaguely aware of the science behind them. This book gives a balanced view of the strengths and limitations of climate modeling. It covers historical developments, current challenges, and future trends in the field. The accessible discussion of climate modeling only requires a basic knowledge of science. Uncertainties in climate predictions and their implications for assessing climate risk are analyzed, as are the computational challenges faced by future models. The book concludes by highlighting the dangers of climate 'doomism', while also making clear the value of predictive models, and the severe and very real risks posed by anthropogenic climate change.

    • Provides a plain-language, non-mathematical explanation of climate prediction aimed at a general audience, with only a basic understanding of science required
    • Enables readers to gain an understanding of the scientific basis of climate models, allowing them to better interpret climate predictions discussed in the popular media and scientific literature
    • Explains the historical context and philosophical foundations of climate prediction, furthering an understanding of how climate science stands in relation to other disciplines
    • Analyses the different types of uncertainties underlying climate prediction to assess the impacts and risks of climate change
    • Makes clear the value of predictive models, and the severe and very real risks posed by anthropogenic climate change
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    Awards

    • The Louis J. Battan Author's Award - Adult, American Meteorological Society

    Reviews & endorsements

    'If you wish to correctly interpret climate modeling results, read The Climate Demon. Saravanan’s brilliant and humorous book helps both scientists and the general public objectively understand strengths and limitations of climate predictions.' Samuel Shen, San Diego State University

    'A wide-ranging guided tour of the modern science of climate prediction, told by a leading expert without jargon or mathematics, and illuminated by history, philosophy, technology and even literature.' Richard C.J. Somerville, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

    'Output from climate models completely underpins our policies on cutting emissions and making society more resilient to future climate – issues that will be affecting everyone on the planet in years to come. I thoroughly recommend this book if you want to understand the science behind these all-important [climate] models.' Tim Palmer, University of Oxford

    ‘R. Saravanan is probably the most knowledgeable person in the world to write this book. This is a book that is accessible to the average college graduate and even many with less formal education. The pace of the reading is smooth, with many metaphors and analogies taken from a wide variety of sources … all whimsical but hitting his points perfectly. Readers will enjoy these features. This is a first rate, well-researched summary and analysis of how predictions in climate science work hand-in-hand with high-tech empirical data and detailed climate simulation models along with their enabler: the modern supercomputer.’ Gerald R. North, Texas A&M University

    'This well-written, balanced text, accessible for readers with an extraordinary range of interests and expertise, will be useful to all and should be on the shelf in every academic library … Highly recommended. D. Bantz, Choice

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    Product details

    • Date Published: January 2022
    • format: Paperback
    • isbn: 9781009018043
    • length: 350 pages
    • dimensions: 229 x 155 x 19 mm
    • weight: 0.65kg
    • availability: In stock
  • Table of Contents

    List of figures
    Preface
    Acknowledgements
    Introduction
    Part I. The Past:
    1. Deducing weather: The dawn of computing
    2. Predicting weather: The butterfly and the tornado
    3. The greenhouse effect: Goldilocks and the three planets
    4. Deducing climate: Smagorinsky's laboratory
    5. Predicting climate: Butterflies in the greenhouse
    6. The ozone hole: Black swan at the polar dawn
    7. Global warming: From gown to town. Part II: The Present:
    8. Occam's razor: The reduction to simplicity
    9. Constraining climate: A conservative view of modeling
    10. Tuning climate: A comedy of compensating errors
    11. Occam's beard: The emergence of complexity
    12. The Hansen paradox: The red Queen's race of climate modeling
    13. The Rumsfeld matrix: Degrees of knowledge
    14. Lost in translation
    15. Taking climate models seriously, not literally. Part III. The Future:
    16. Moore's law: To exascale and beyond
    17. Machine learning: The climate imitation game
    18. Geoengineering: Reducing the fever
    19. Pascal's wager: Hedging our climate bets
    20. Moonwalking into the future. Epilogue. Glossary. Selected Bibliography. References. Index. Endnotes.

  • Resources for

    The Climate Demon

    R. Saravanan

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  • Author

    R. Saravanan, Texas A & M University
    R. Saravanan is Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University. He is a climate scientist with a background in physics and fluid dynamics and has been a lead researcher using computer models of the climate for over thirty years. He built an open-source simplified climate model from scratch, and has worked on complex models run on the world's most powerful supercomputers. He has worked with scientists at multiple climate modeling centers: the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton; the UK Universities Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme (UGAMP) in Cambridge; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. Saravanan has served on national and international committees on climate science, including the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on the Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability, and the Science Steering Committee of the Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Atlantic (PIRATA). He recently helped create the TED-Ed animated short, 'Is the weather actually becoming more extreme?'.

    Awards

    • The Louis J. Battan Author's Award - Adult, American Meteorological Society

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