We live in a world that is increasingly vulnerable to climatic shocks - affecting agriculture and industry, government and international trade, not to mention human health and happiness. Serious anxieties have been aroused by respected scientists warning of dire perils that could result from upsets of the climatic regime. In this internationally acclaimed book, Emeritus Professor Hubert Lamb examines what we know about climate, how the past record of climate can be reconstructed, the causes of climatic variation, and its impact on human affairs now and in the historical and prehistoric past. This 2nd Edition includes a new preface and postscript reviewing the wealth of literature to emerge in recent years, and discusses implications for a deeper understanding of the problems of future climatic fluctuations and forecasting.
1. Introduction 2. The Climate Problem Part I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE 3. How Climate Works 4. How Climate Comes to Fluctuate and Change 5. How We Can Reconstruct the Past Record of Climate Part II: CLIMATE AND HISTORY 6. Climate at the Dawn of History 7. In the Times of Early Civilizations 8. Times of Disturbance and Decline in the Ancient World 9. Roman Times and After 10. Through Viking Times to the High Middle Ages 11. Decline Again in the Late Middle Ages 12. The Little Ice Age: Background to the History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 13. The Recovery: 1700 to Around 1950 Part III: CLIMATE IN THE MODERN WORLD AND QUESTIONS OVER THE FUTURE 14. Climate Since 1950 15. The Impact of Climatic Developments on Human Affairs and Human History 16. The Causes of Climate's Fluctuations and Changes 17. Forecasting 18. Developments Over Recent Decades Suggestions for Further Reading
