The White Planet

Jean Jouzel, Claude Lorius, and Dominique Raynaud are internationally acclaimed scientists who have won many awards for their work documenting long-term climate change through the study of deep ice cores. Jouzel and Raynaud are members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Lorius was awarded the 2009 Blue Planet Prize.

Preface xi PART ONE THE WORLD OF ICE: PAST AND PRESENT 1 Chapter 1 The Ice on Our Planet 3* Snow and Ice: A Multifaceted World 3 * Mountain Glaciers and Ice Caps 5 * Polar Regions: The Omnipresence of the White Planet 7 * Greenland, Antarctica, and Ice Shelves 10 * Ice: An Agent and Indicator of Climate Change 14 * The White Planet and Sea Levels 16 Chapter 2 From Exploration to Scientific Observation 18 * The Flow of Mountain Glaciers 19 * Mass Balance: The Health of a Glacier 21 * The Arctic Ocean in the Time of the Explorers 23 * The Arctic Ocean: Vulnerable Ice 25 * Greenland: An Island Inhabited for Millennia 28 * Greenland: An Increasingly Negative Mass Balance 28 * Antarctica: A Much More Recent Exploration 31 * Antarctica: A Long Uncertain Mass Balance 34 Chapter 3 Ice through the Ages 37* The Time of the Pioneers 37 * Ice of Long Ago 40 * Glaciations of the Quaternary and Astronomic Theory 46 PART TWO POLAR ICE: AMAZING ARCHIVES 51 Chapter 4 Reconstructing the Climates of the Past 53 * The Round of Isotopes 54 * Going Back in Time 57 * The Recent Period 57 * The Distant Past 60 * Paleoceanography 61 * Continental Archives 62 * Dating Oceanic and Continental Archives 64 * A Cornucopia of Results 66 Chapter 5 Glacial Archives 68* The Long Story of a Snowflake 68 * The Ice and Its Isotopes: A Paleothermometer 70 * Impurities with Multiple Sources 71 * Air Bubbles in the Ice: A Very Beautiful Story 73 * The Headaches of Dating 77 Chapter 6 The Campaigns 82* Camps Century and Byrd: The First Deep Ice Core Drillings 82 * Fifty Years Ago: The French on the Polar Ice 86 * The First Drilling at Dome C: Success of the French Team 88 * Rapid Climate Variations: Initial Inklings 91 * Vostok: A Collaboration between French and Soviet Teams 92 * Europe and the United States: Two Drilling Operations in the Center of Greenland 96 * Europe Turns to Antarctica 98 * Vostok: More than 3,600 Meters of Ice 101 * Other Core Drilling in Antarctica 103 * The Glaciers of the Andes and the Himalaya 105 * A Return to Greenland 106 * The European EPICA Drilling: A Double Success beyond All Hopes 108 Chapter 7 Vostok: The Cornucopia 110* A Complete Glacial-Interglacial Cycle 112 * Climate and Greenhouse Effect Go Hand in Hand 113 * Much More Information 118 * A Huge Lake under the Ice 120 Chapter 8 Dome C: 800,000 Years and the Revolution of the Rhythm of Glaciations 122* Ice Older than That at Vostok 123 * Inversion of the Magnetic Field 126 Chapter 9 Rapid Climatic Variations 130* The First Indications 130 * Increasingly Clear Indications 132 * A Connection with Ocean Circulation? 133 * Confirmation 134 * Rapid Events during a Warm Period? 139 * Initially Underestimated Changes in Temperature 142 * The Connection with the Ocean Henceforth Demonstrated 143 * Consequences on a Planetary Scale 147 Chapter 10 The Last 10,000 Years: An Almost Stable Climate 149* Volcanism and Solar Activity: Natural Climatic Forcings 150 * How Long Has Human Activity Been Changing the Composition of the Atmosphere? 152 PART THREE THE WHITE PLANET TOMORROW157 Chapter 11 The Climate and Greenhouse Gases 159* The Greenhouse Effect: A Truly Beneficial Natural Phenomenon 159 * The Greenhouse Effect Due to Human Activity: A Slow Awareness 163 * How Did We Get to This Point? 168 Chapter 12 Have Humans Already Changed the Climate? 173* The Time of the Pioneers 173 * The Awareness 174 * The Establishment of the IPCC 177 * The Problem of Aerosols 180 * The Climate in the Last Millennium 183 * Warming Is a Certainty 185 * The Arguments of Skeptics 189 * The White Planet on the Front Lines of Global Warming 195 Chapter 13 What Will the Climate Be in the Future? 201* A True Upheaval if We Aren't Careful 202 * What Will Become of Our Glaciers? 206 * An Arctic Ocean without Ice? 209 * Surprises under the Frozen Ground 210 * A More Rapid and Higher Sea-Level Rise than Predicted 211 * The Halt of the Gulf Stream 214 Chapter 14 A Warming with Multiple Consequences 218* A True Upheaval on a Global Scale 218 * Mountain Regions 222 * Polar Regions: Multiple and Diverse Impacts 223 * The Political and Economic Stakes: Climate and Oil 225 Chapter 15 What We Must Do 227* Stabilizing the Greenhouse Effect: A True Challenge 228 * The Kyoto Protocol: A First Step 230 * The Bali Conference 234 * Can the Challenge Be Met? 236 * Copenhagen: Failure or Half-Success 238 * A Necessary Adaptation 241 * The "Grenelle de l'environnement" 242 PART FOUR THE POLES AND THE PLANET 245 Chapter 16 The Crucial Place of Research 247* A Short History of the Polar Years 249 * The International Polar Year 2007-2009 251 * Glacial Ice Coring: Ambitious Objectives 253 * The Microbiology of Ice and Subglacial Lakes: Life in an Extreme Environment 255 * Concordia: A Station Full of Promise 258 Chapter 17 Humans and the Rise of Pollution 261* The Story of Lead 262 * Other Heavy Metals, Including Copper 264 * Sulfates 266 * Radioactivity 268 * The Ozone Hole: An Emblematic Pollution 269 * The Anthropocene and Greenhouse Gases 271 Conclusion: The Anthropocene Era 272 Notes 277 Selected Bibliography 289 Index 291