(1) The Evolution of Climate (2) Climatic Changes: their Nature and Causes

Abstract

A HUNDRED million or a thousand million years ago the temperature of the earth's surface was very much the same as now,” say Profs. Hunting-ton and Visher in the first chapter of their “Climatic Changes” (p. 15). This uniformity of climate throughout geological time, in contrast with the inconstancy of the weather from day to day and from year to year, is the great paradox of geological meteorology. The climatic conservatism of the earth as a whole is qualified by great local changes which have produced glaciations at about ten different geological dates and acclimatised in high latitudes plants allied to those now confined to warmer regions. The study of climatic changes has the especial attraction that it is a tempting explanation of the fall of civilisations and States, since man is obviously dependent on the weather.

(1) The Evolution of Climate.

By C. E. P. Brooks. Pp. 173. (London: Benn Bros., Ltd., 1922.) 8s. 6d. net.

(2) Climatic Changes: their Nature and Causes.

By Ellsworth Huntington S. S. Visher. Pp. xvi + 329. (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1922.) 17s. 6d. net.