Dire Predictions: The Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC

This book does not go into depth on climate science or atmospheric physics. There are other books for that. What this book does is explain the basics of climate science, what is understood and what is not understood. It discusses projections and what they mean in terms of consequences and what climate change means for us and future generations, and what can be done about it. It presents the facts using simple language and colorful graphs, maps and pictures. The authors do not exaggerate or try scaring you; they are just telling us what the situation is. The book has five sections, each section starting out with a short summary of key ideas.

There’s so much misinformation about climate change being spread in this country. I think I see more falsehoods and nonsense on the topic than I see useful information. Having a book, like this one, that summarizes the basics in a format that is easy to understand and remember is invaluable in this situation. The more everyone understands about the topic, the less impact the disinformation will have. Therefore this is a very important book.

The book is well written and well organized. It’s the perfect basic climate change book for the average reader. Some of my favorite sub sections were; “Fingerprints distinguish human and natural impacts on climate”, “How sensitive is the climate”, “The Faux Pause”, “Past IPCC projections, how did they do?”, and “The Ethics of Climate Change”, and also having the glossary was nice. One minor complaint I have is that the book has so many background photos and colors that it is difficult to highlight text. This is a very good book that I suggest that everyone reads.

“Leave science to the scientists” says Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic and conservative candidate in the 2016 US Presidential election about Pope Francis who, unlike Santorum, actually has some scientific training. Santorum made his statement after the Vatican issued an Encyclical calling for world leaders to take swift and aggressive global efforts to reduce the consequences of human caused climate change.

What Santorum failed to include in his advice to Pope Francis, is the importance of LISTENING to scientists, and working to UNDERSTAND what they are saying so that you can make well-informed actions. This is no different than one would do on other important matters, like healthcare, where education, experience and expertise is valued.

Candidate Santorum is unlikely to heed this advice since the actual science opposes his worldview, but if he did seek out the views of scientists, like Pope Francis did, and actually tried to understand the science of climate change, than the 2nd edition of “Dire Predictions” would be a great place for him and others to start.

Authors Dr. Michael Mann and Dr. Lee R. Kump use simple language and beautiful illustrations to clearly explain what the world’s leading scientific experts are saying about the causes of climate change and its effects on the earth and its inhabitants. There are also chapters on what we can do about it (like transition to renewable energy) as well as the likely economic impacts of mitigation (the transition away from fossil fuels ultimately saves money as well as lives).

The closing chapter is about the urgency of climate change – and why we must act now. This chapter brings to my mind this quote from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

Once you read the book and comprehend the basics of the science, it’s easy to understand why Pope Francis, a world leader on issues of ethics and morality, is speaking out so strongly for immediate and aggressive action on climate change – despite politically and financially motivated opposition. That is what leaders do – Lead (note to Santorum and other world leaders).

If you are a non-expert like me, Rick Santorum and others, it would be wise to follow the Pope’s lead and to leave science to the scientists – and to listen to, and act upon, what they have to say. Reading Dire Predictions is a great way to understand the problem and why you should care.

For this review, I read a reviewer’s copy of the Second Edition supplied by the publisher, then interviewed author Michael Mann. The Second Edition is much like the First Edition but updated to reflect changes in the most recent IPCC report. I ask Mann more about the differences in the interview, below.

Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by Michael Mann and Lee Kump is everyperson’s guide to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The IPCC issues a periodic set of reports on the state of global climate change, and has been doing so for almost two decades. It is a massive undertaking and few have the time or training to read though and absorb it, yet it is very important that every citizen understands the reports’ implications. Why? Because human caused climate change has emerged as the number one existential issue of the day, and individuals, corporations, and governments must act to implement sensible and workable changes in behavior and policy or there will be dire consequences.

Dire Predictions is a DK Publishing product, which means it is very visual, succinct, and as is the case with all the DK products I’ve seen, well done. This is the second edition of the book, updated to reflect the most recent IPCC findings. The book gives a basic background on climate change, describes scientific projections and how they are developed, discuses impacts of climate change, and outlines vulnerability and modes of adaptation to change. The book finishes with a panoply of suggestions for solving the climate change crisis. Since Dire Predictions reflects the IPCC reports, it can be used as a primer in understanding the much more extensive and intensive original document, but it can also be used entirely on its own. I would recommend Dire Predictions for use in any of a wide range of classroom settings. It could be a primary text in middle school or high school Earth Systems classes, or a supplementary text in intro college courses. Anyone who is engaged in the climate change conversation and wants to be well informed simply needs to get this book, read it, and have it handy as a reference.

Lee Kump is a professor in Geosciences at Penn State, and author of a major textbook “The Earth System.” Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Director of the Earth System Science Centre at Penn State, and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines (as well as countless scientific publications). Mann has been on top of the climate change issue for years. His work in the late 1980s, with colleagues, produced the famous “Hockey Stick” graph which had two major impacts. First, it made the link between the recent century or so of direct observation of Earth’s surface temperatures (with thermometers and/or satellites) and the “paleo” record made up of proxyindicators of temperature, an essential step in placing modern climate change in long term perspective. Second, using this connection, Mann and colleagues showed that recent global warming, known to be primarily caused by human released greenhouse gas pollution, was already extreme and likely to get more extreme. Since then, Mann has been a key scientist involved with the IPCC, and has carried out many important research projects.

I asked Dr. Mann to address a handful of questions I had about Dire Predictions.

Question: Some might think of the title of the book as a bit extreme, even “alarmist,” to reference a term we often see used by climate science deniers. I assume you chose it carefully. Why “Dire Predictions: [subtitle]” instead of “Understanding Climate Change: [subtitle]”?

Answer: This was a mutual decision between the authors (Lee Kump and myself) and the publisher. The publisher felt this title both communicates the nature of the content of the book and the larger message of urgency; The predictions really are “dire” for the worst case scenarios, i.e. if we fail to act on climate change.

Question: What are the biggest changes, or perhaps most interesting changes, between the first and second edition, such as new research? Did any of the initial projections get less dire? More dire?

Answer: The main difference is that the book reflects the latest science as reported in the most recent (5th) IPCC assessment report. Some spreads remained unchanged, i.e. we felt there were no significant developments in the science since the last report (and last book). But in other cases, there were some substantial developments, i.e. we felt compelled to talk about the “Faux Pause” since it has gotten so much attention, and the issue of equilibrium climate sensitivity is discussed in more depth. The concept of the “Anthropocene” is dealt with more explicitly. And the issue of recent cold eastern U.S. winters and what it really means, and the unprecedented current drought in California are discussed.

Question: It seems that for decades the climate science has been settled sufficiently to realize that release of fossil Carbon will have serious consequences. Yet policy and technology changes to address this have been slow. Is this simply because such things take a long time, or have the efforts of science deniers been successful in slowing down action? How much better (or less dire) would things be in, say, 2050 had people, corporations, and governments accepted climate change as a serious matter 20 years ago? In other words, how much damage has science denialism done?

Answer: Oh, that’s a fundamentally important point. There is a huge “procrastination penalty” in not acting on the problem, and we’ve presumably committed to billions if not trillions of economic losses by not having acted yet. But there is still time to avert the worst and most costly damages, so there is an urgency of action unlike there has ever been before. This is something we tackle head on in the book.

Question: Since you finished working on the second edition, are there any new research findings you wish you could somehow add to the book? Or, any changes in what is emphasized?

Indeed. As you know, Stefan Rahmstorf, I and others recently published an article in Nature Climate Change demonstrating that the AMOC (North Atlantic ocean circulation, the so-called “conveyor belt”) may be weakening even faster than the IPCC models indicate. Yet, we have downplayed that topic (though it is mentioned in a brand new spread on “Tipping Points”) because the consensus has leaned toward this being one of the less likely tipping points to occur in the decades ahead. This is a reminder that science is often fast-moving, and in this case, had we waited a year to publish the 2nd edition of DP, we might have chosen to actually give the AMOC collapse issue even more attention!

Question: I’m wondering if the projections for sea level rise in Dire Predictions are conservative with respect to more recent research. Also, there seems to be a more clear and explicit link between climate change an ware or social unrest. Would these issues also have more attention if you had another shot at the book?

Answer: We do discuss the sea level rise and the fact that iPCC projections here (and for many other variables) have been historically too conservative. There is some discussion now about the role of water resources in national security and conflict, and the huge advances that are taking place in renewable energy (that is something that has changed dramatically since the first edition—and a reminder of the reasons there are for cautious optimism).

The reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contain the sum total of scientific knowledge on climate change science, mitigation, and adaptation. The long lead times needed to produce such comprehensive documents means that they inevitably omit the latest scientific findings when the reports are finally approved and published, but those reports are still a treasure trove for researchers working on most aspects of climate science and solutions.

What are great resources for researchers, however, are not necessarily accessible for the intelligent lay reader. For that much broader audience there is the excellent compilation of the IPCC’s findings from Professors Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump of Pennsylvania State University. The book, titled Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change—the Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC, is now out in its second edition.

A real strength of this book is that the authors distill what’s important, so you don’t have to. The book is visual, as the title implies. It has pictures on every page, and is chock full of key graphs from the IPCC reports. The prose is clear and concise, and is written for a Scientific American level audience (i.e., lay readers who take an intelligent interest in science and who are not scared off by graphs). If graphs aren’t your thing, you can still learn a great deal by just reading the text.

The structure of the book is very close to the 1st edition, with five major sections:

Part 1: Climate Change Basics

Part 2: Climate Change Projections

Part 3: The Impacts of Climate Change

Part 4: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change

Part 5: Solving Climate change

In each section you’ll find short (1-3 page) sections covering each key topic, so it’s relatively easy going. The 2nd edition contains 16 more pages than the 1st edition, and that new material highlights findings that have become more salient in recent years. Those new topics include:

Where is all that heat going?

Suffocating the ocean

Welcome to the Anthropocene

The 2012 North American heat wave

Comparing climate model predictions with observations

How sensitive is the climate?

Fossil-fuel emissions scenarios

The “faux pause”

Past IPCC projections: How did they do?

Tipping points, irreversibilities, and abrupt climate change

It’s all about the economy

The water-energy nexus

Dire Predictions is a wonderful summary of climate science for the lay reader, and I highly recommend it. If you pair it with Joe Romm’s Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know (which is equally readable and contains more extensive treatment of climate economics, policy, and solutions) you’ll have complete and up to date knowledge of climate change and what we can do about it. Both books together would work well as the basis for high school, college, and graduate level classes, or as the core resources for reading clubs exploring climate change. If you care about climate, these books are “best in class”.

References

IPCC. 2014. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. [http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/]

IPCC. 2014. Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. : Cambridge University Press. [http://mitigation2014.org]

IPCC. 2013. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. [http://www.climatechange2013.org]

Mann, Michael E., and Lee R. Kump. 2015. Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change–The Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC. 2nd ed. New York, NY: DK Publishing (A Penguin Random House Company). [http://amzn.to/1UeemaC]

Romm, Joseph. 2015. Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [http://amzn.to/1QgZw1V]

The first edition of this book was published seven years ago. A lot has been learned since that time of the 4th meeting of the IPCC. This is the latest from their 5th meeting early 2015

The think this is a fine reference for one who has some science education and interest on the pressing, global issue of AGCC (anthropogenic global climate change). IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) is responsible for gathering and summarizing the empirical picture of what's going on. Dire Predictions gives graphic summaries of experimental results with text explaining the data and probably implications for present and future conditions for life on Earth, physically our sole mutual home.

Data can be daunting to make sense of, but the objective of the book is to make it available and attractively presented in hard copy. It is colorful and illustrated, often with dramatic photos in background. Scattered through the book are also QR links, like bar codes that you can scan with your smart phone to access links to relevant websites and online videos. The graphics and pictures substitute for a few thousand words. Some pages have pointers that refer you to other page numbers that provide helpful backgrounds or relevant topics

I view this as a reference that helps build knowledge as you progress through but it's not to read the chapters in sequence. I'd recommend the beginning for some vocabulary and fundamentals. The further sections of the book are Projections, Impacts, and Solutions, and can be explored in whatever order you wish. Some pages have pointers that refer you to other page numbers. I also can flip through it and peruse one by one the two-page spreads which are common throughout.

By accessing these pages randomly or more sequentially, I can either way add to my knowledge and learn what the best scientists are discovering, and how to speak the language of climate science.

There are very many books of various styles about the climate crisis. This one is unique (as far as I know) in having at least one photograph, illustration, graph, or infogrpahic on every single page. Almost every double page (two facing pages) has its own bold headline, usually stated as a question."Dire Predictions" is clearly aimed at the mass of people who may be newly curious about the climate crisis, but have never read a book about it before, and don't have the inclination or patience to read a dense argument. From the Introduction: "Dire Predictions presents and expands upon the findings documented in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report in an illustrated, visually stunning, and undeniably powerful way for the non-scientist."

And the book certainly is visually stunning, at the same time that its implications are frightening, especially for those who may have somehow escaped understanding until now what scientists have been warning about for several decades. The book is divided into four sections, with color-coded page edges: Climate Change Basics, Climate Change Projections, The Impacts of Climate Change, and Solving Climate Change.

The book that I have read that is closest to this one is "Our Choice", by Al Gore. Also richly illustrated, "Our Choice" is longer, at 416 pages vs. 224 for "Dire Predictions". "Our Choice" would be my top choice for the person who will buy only one book on the climate crisis, and wants an in-depth look at solutions. "Dire Predictions" section on solutions is necessarily abbreviated given the available space, and does not really get into political obstacles or evaluating alternate pathways to sustainability. For instance, "Dire Predictions" devotes one sentence to nuclear power, while "Our Choice" has an entire chapter, including looking at advanced reactors and a page on the possibility of practical fusion.

Nevertheless, "Dire Predictions" will find its audience, and will serve as a wake-up call for folks who have been asleep on this issue for far too long. I give it five stars for explaining a difficult, technical subject in a way that is both easy to grasp and entirely scientifically sound, with no short-cuts.

Michael Mann gets it along with 98% of scientists & 80% of people globally.

This book explains the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in laymen's words and has helpful graphics. The book provides background information and graphics not provided in AR5. This makes it easier for the reader to understand concepts and issues within AR5. I had printed off the AR5 Summary Report (available online) and had worked my way through much of the original report. I wish I had started with Mann's book.

I have read a lot on climate change for several years now, but have learned much from Mann's book. If you want to sort out the issues related to climate change, this is a wonderful resource.

This is a very poorly written book. It reads more like a penny stock news release than a scientific explanation of climate change. There are no footnotes, and many unattributed claims are presented in non-scientific language. If you're looking for a detailed explanation of global warming based on hard science rather than speculation and guesswork, look elsewhere.

I really liked it up until they blamed child births on global climate change.