The Great Ocean Conveyor: Discovering the Trigger for Abrupt Climate Change .

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 22 March 2011
• Author: Michaels, Patrick J.

The Great Ocean Conveyor: Discovering the Trigger for Abrupt Climate Change

Wallace S. Broecker

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010, 154 pp.

This interesting book is an in-depth guide to workings of the mind of one of history's great environmental scientists, Wallace (Wally) Broecker, of Columbia University. It is strongly recommended for anyone interested in climate change policy. However, it is not an easy read. Despite the somewhat turgid text--and myriad, excruciating, and sometimes unexplained concepts and details--there are several important lessons. The most important of these is that what modern man would think of as dramatic climate change is the rule, not the exception, and we only partially understand, within broad limits, why our climate is so inherently unstable.

The ostensible purpose of Broecker's book is to describe what he calls "The Great Ocean Conveyor" as a major modulator of earth's climate. The Conveyor is a three dimensional ocean current in which warm, surface water...