Skip to content
Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes (Paperback)
  • Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes (Paperback)
zoom

Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes (Paperback)

(author)
£13.99
Paperback 320 Pages
Published: 25/04/2013
Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
  • In stock

Usually dispatched within 1-2 days

Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
  • This item has been added to your basket

Twenty thousand years ago our planet was an icehouse. Temperatures were down six degrees; ice sheets kilometres thick buried much of Europe and North America and sea levels were 130m lower. The following 15 millennia saw an astonishing transformation as our planet metamorphosed into the temperate world upon which our civilisation has grown and thrived. One of the most dynamic periods in Earth history saw rocketing temperatures melt the great ice sheets like butter on a hot summer's day; feeding torrents of freshwater into ocean basins that rapidly filled to present levels. The removal of the enormous weight of ice at high latitudes caused the crust to bounce back triggering earthquakes in Europe and North America and provoking an unprecedented volcanic outburst in Iceland. A giant submarine landslide off the coast of Norway sent a tsunami crashing onto the Scottish coast while around the margins of the continents the massive load exerted on the crust by soaring sea levels encouraged a widespread seismic and volcanic rejoinder.

In many ways, this post-glacial world mirrors that projected to arise as a consequence of unmitigated climate change driven by human activities. Already there are signs that the effects of climbing global temperatures are causing the sleeping giant to stir once again. Could it be that we are on track to bequeath to our children and their children not only a far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious one?

Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199678754
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 334 g
Dimensions: 195 x 131 x 17 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

McGuire traces this fascinating and disturbing story from the past in order to alert us to present and future perils - Geographical Magazine

The author succeeds at interpreting complex earth science into compelling reading for a popular audience. Anyone with an interest in climate change, geology, and atmospheric science will enjoy this work. - Jeffrey Beall, Library Journal

Professor Bill McGuires new book is a well-timed and beautifully written work on the links between the Earths climate and its geological processes. - The Climate Hub

You may also be interested in...

Marine Pollution
Added to basket
When a Billion Chinese Jump
Added to basket
The God Species
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99
Reaching for the Sun
Added to basket
The Politics of Climate Change
Added to basket
Heat
Added to basket
Paperback
£9.99
Six Degrees
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99
The Climate Casino
Added to basket
The Two-Mile Time Machine
Added to basket
Silent Spring
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99
A Blueprint for a Safer Planet
Added to basket
The Weather Makers
Added to basket
Earthmasters
Added to basket
Paperback
£16.99
Climate Change and Society
Added to basket
Climate
Added to basket
Paperback
£9.99

Please sign in to write a review

Your review has been submitted successfully.