Imagine a world of wildly escalating temperatures, apocalyptic flooding, devastating storms and catastrophic sea levels. This might sound like a prediction for the future or the storyline of a new Hollywood blockbuster but it’s actually what occurred on earth in the past. In a day and age when worrying forecasts for future climate change are the norm, it seems hard to believe that such things happened regularly over time. Can humankind decipher the past and learn from it? As science gains new understanding of how the planet works, it’s becoming increasingly clear that no one place is disconnected from anywhere else. From the Alps to the Andes, seemingly unrelated parts of the world are connected in one way or another. By reading this book you’ll realize that we're facing challenges beyond anything our species has had to contend with before.

Murphy presents a vision of an America gone off the rails: a place where it literally rains cats and dogs, where a hubcap ranch is now a National Preservation Site, where a horde of circus folk and Elvis fans are on the rampage--and where some rather suspicious things are going on with time and gravity.

Climatologist Gavin Cooke takes a comprehensive and detailed look at global warming and the 'Big Freeze' of 2010 to explain how Britain will freeze before it fries.Gavin Cooke takes a look at climate patterns, including the bad winters of years gone by, to predict what lies ahead for Britain as the warm weather of the Gulf Stream is bypassed by the weather fronts as they approach the UK from Siberia. There was no 'barbeque summer' in 2009 and no mild winter. The big freeze of 2009/10, the coldest in almost 50 years, is only the beginning. Predicting that from 2020 Britain will be hit by a mini ice age lasting 30 years or more, the nation will be left in a state of near anarchy if preparation is not taken today.

“The Antarctic Factor: if anything can go wrong, it will. It's basically Murphy's Law on steroids.” —Chris Turney On Christmas Eve 2013, off the coast of East Antarctica, an abrupt weather change trapped the Shokalskiy—the ship carrying earth scientist Chris Turney and seventy-one others involved in the Australasian Antarctic Expedition—in densely packed sea ice, 1400 miles from civilization. The forecast offered no relief—a blizzard was headed their way. As Turney chronicles his ordeal, he revisits the harrowing Antarctic expedition of famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton on his ship, Endurance, as well as the legendary explorations of Douglas Mawson. But for Turney, the stakes were even higher: he had his wife and children with him. Turney was connected to the outside world through Twitter, YouTube, and Skype. Within hours, the team became the focus of a media storm, and an international rescue effort was launched to reach the stranded ship. But could help arrive in time to avert a tragedy? A taut 21st-century survival story, Iced In is also an homage to all scientific explorers who embody the human spirit of adventure, joy in discovery, and will to live. “Traveling in the footsteps of the great explorers Ernest Shackleton and Douglas Mawson, Turney draws on records from their journeys, making comparisons versus his own struggle in this enjoyable armchair adventure.” —Booklist “A classic adventure tale of a fight for survival. Turney’s account brings a chill to the spine.” —Herald Sun, Melbourne “Exciting and compelling reading.” —Good Reading With a New Epilogue by the Author

This book delves into the environmental changes that have taken place during the Quaternary: the two to three million years during which humans have inhabited the Earth, and conveys the relevance of the study of this period to current environmental and climatic concerns.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

Climate change is a major topic of concern today, scientifically, socially, and politically. It will undoubtedly continue to be so for the foreseeable future, as predicted changes in global temperatures, rainfall, and sea level take place, and as human society adapts to these changes. In this remarkable new work, Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams demonstrate how the Earth's climate has continuously altered over its 4.5 billion-year history. The story can be read from clues preserved in the Earth's strata - the evidence is abundant, though always incomplete, and also often baffling, puzzling, infuriating, tantalizing, seemingly contradictory. Geologists, though, are becoming ever more ingenious at interrogating this evidence, and the story of the Earth's climate is now being reconstructed in ever-greater detail - maybe even providing us with clues to the future of contemporary climate change. The history is dramatic and often abrupt. Changes in global and regional climate range from bitterly cold to sweltering hot, from arid to humid, and they have impacted hugely upon the planet's evolving animal and plant communities, and upon its physical landscapes of the Earth. And yet, through all of this, the Earth has remained consistently habitable for life for over three billion years - in stark contrast to its planetary neighbours. Not too hot, not too cold; not too dry, not too wet, it is aptly known as 'the Goldilocks planet'.