Global climate change and human life / M. A. K. Khalil.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- The framework -- Atmospheric composition -- Mass balance theory and small models -- Transport processes -- Mechanisms of sources and sinks -- Balance of climate gases and aerosols -- The science of climate -- Instructive climate models -- Climate feedbacks -- Match of climate change observed and modeled -- Population, affluence, and global change -- Impacts of climate change on human life -- Climate management -- Possible futures.

"At the start, I intended to write this book for all college students and practically everyone else with an interest in the global environment. My goal became increasingly difficult to attain as I progressed. I still think it will serve this community, but not everything will be understood by everyone. In studying climate change, and environmental science in general, there are many simultaneous and credible influences. Which are important and which can be ignored, requires the ability to associate numbers with the causes of each phenomenon. To provide that ability without resorting to complex mathematics was a daunting task, but I have managed to do so with the use of only basic algebra. Results from more advanced mathematics have been relegated to simple formulas without proofs, because these are not the debatable aspects of climate science, but whether they apply under the circumstances we are studying may be. So, my readers should be comfortable in proceeding to learn from this book, regardless of their majors, or academic backgrounds. I believe it will benefit the middle years college students the most, and the exercises at the ends of the chapters are designed for them to attain a deeper understanding of global change science within a formal course. Resources are available from the publisher for university level instructors that will considerably reduce the work needed to get a course up and running in any department. The book itself takes a holistic view of global change science in which the earth's climate is a focal point. It takes established ideas from the basic sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology and several social sciences and fuses them into a coherent framework using many new ideas and concepts that are needed to make the connections. These connections and ideas, and their consequences are expected to evolve over time, as the science develops to serve the societal needs for managing the global environment and especially the climate"-- Provided by publisher.