scholarly journals III.—The Climate Controversy

1876 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 442-451
Author(s):  
Searles V. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Currents ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Low Latitudes ◽  
Principles Of Geology

No. 4.—The cause suggested under this head was the favourite theory of Sir Charles Lyell. That the existing climates are materially influenced by the distribution of land and water, and by the direction of the great ocean currents, physicists and geologists are agreed. It was the view, however, of Sir Charles, that these conditions were of themselves alone adequate to account for all changes of climate which the earth has undergone, though in his latest editions of the “Principles of Geology” he admitted that other causes have probably contributed. In this work he gave imaginary representations of such a distribution of land and water over the globe as, in his view, would produce the extreme of heat and the extreme of cold. In that intended to represent the extreme of heat, the land is all collected in low latitudes on either side of the Equator, so that the higher latitudes and polar regions are occupied entirely by the ocean; while in that intended to represent the extreme of cold, these conditions are reversed.

Geology Emerges as a Science

2021 ◽  
pp. 6-33
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Principles Of Geology ◽  
The Way

This chapter and the next one cover the way in which geology came to be a science in its own right, spanning the early centuries of geology. Lives of crucial individual scientists from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century are discussed by relating the stories and discoveries of each, commencing with Leonardo da Vinci and continuing with the European geologists, including Nicholaus Steno, Abraham Werner, James Hutton, Charles Lyell, and early fossilists such as Etheldred Benet. Steno, Werner, Hutton and Lyell, and other early geologists revealed and wrote about the basic principles of geology, painstakingly untangling and piecing together the threads of the Earth’s vast history. They made sense of jumbled sequences of rocks, which had undergone dramatic changes since they were formed, and discerned the significance of fossils, found in environments seemingly incongruous to where the creatures once lived, as ancient forms of life. They set the stage for further research on the nature of the Earth and life on it, providing subsequent generations of geologists and those who study the Earth the basis on which to refine and flesh out the biography of the Earth.

scholarly journals II.—Climate and Time

1919 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Deeley
Keyword(s):  
Physical Geography ◽  
The State ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
True Theory ◽  
Principles Of Geology

Sir Charles Lyell in his Principles of Geology, published in 1834, remarks upon the accumulating proofs that the climate of the earth had undergone great changes in the past, and he endeavoured to show that these changes might have been produced by the varying distribution of sea and land. He says, “But if, instead of vague conjectures as to what might have been the state of the planet at the era of its creation, we fix our thoughts steadily on the connexion at present between climate and the distribution of land and sea; and if we then consider what influence former fluctuations in the physical geography of the earth must have had on superficial temperature, we may perhaps approximate to a true theory.”

Humphry Davy as Geologist, 1805–29

1976 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Siegfried ◽  
R. H. Dott
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Textual Material ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Principles Of Geology

When Charles Lyell was writing his Principles of geology early in 1830, he interpolated five chapters between a recently written historical account of the science and the main body of textual material whose structure had long been determined. These added chapters contained not only Lyell's effort ‘to express the consequences of the uniformity of nature in the history of the earth’, but also his general arguments against the catastro-phic-progressionist interpretation, which he felt obliged to refute. In Chapter IX, the final one in the introductory sections, Lyell chose as representative of the progressionist view, Sir Humphry Davy, ‘a late distinguished writer’ who had ‘advanced some of the weightiest of these objections’ to Lyell's own steady-state view of the earth. No other defender of the progressionist history of the earth was named in Lyell's chapter, and we might well ask, why Humphry Davy? Was he merely an easy target for Lyell's refutations, a straw man set up by Lyell for his own rhetorical convenience?

Consuming the Earth

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Renewable Resources ◽  
Ecological Footprint ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ocean Currents ◽  
Biological Integrity ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Per Capita

The ecological footprint of humanity, as this chapter documents, is now over 1.5 times higher than the earth’s capacity to regenerate renewable resources and assimilate waste. This crisis is worsening as the biological integrity of ecosystems continues to decline and as the global ecological footprint continues to rise (with per capita footprints rising in most countries). This chapter documents some of the accompanying ecological costs of rising rates of unsustainable consumption for forests, oceans, freshwater, soils, species, and the global climate. More than half of the world’s tropical forests have been cleared since 1950, with loggers, ranchers, and plantation owners continuing to clear millions of hectares a year. The global climate is warming, glaciers are melting, and ocean currents are shifting. And each day another 10 to 500 species (of the earth’s 8–9 million species) are going extinct.

Effects of Continents and Supercontinents on Climate

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. W. Rogers ◽  
M. Santosh
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
The North ◽  
Rock Types ◽  
Control Climate ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Geologic Record

Continents affect the earth’s climate because they modify global wind patterns, control the paths of ocean currents, and absorb less heat than seawater. Throughout earth history the constant movement of continents and the episodic assembly of supercontinents has influenced both global climate and the climates of individual continents. In this chapter we discuss both present climate and the history of climate as far back in the geologic record as we can draw inferences. We concentrate on longterm changes that are affected by continental movements and omit discussion of processes with periodicities less than about 20,000 years. We refer readers to Clark et al. (1999) and Cronin (1999) if they are interested in such short-term processes as El Nino, periodic variations in solar irradiance, and Heinrich events. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section describes the processes that control climate on the earth and includes a discussion of possible causes of glaciation that occurred over much of the earth at more than one time in the past. The second section investigates the types of evidence that geologists use to infer past climates. They include specific rock types that can form only under restricted climatic conditions, varieties of individual fossils, diversity of fossil populations, and information that the 18O/16O isotopic system can provide about temperatures of formation of ancient sediments. The third section recounts the history of the earth’s climate and relates changes to the growth and movement of continents. This history takes us from the Archean, when climates are virtually unknown, through various stages in the evolution of organic life, and ultimately to the causes of the present glaciation in both the north and the south polar regions. The earth’s climate is controlled both by processes that would operate even if continents did not exist and also by the positions and topographies of continents. We begin with the general controls, then discuss the specific effects of continents, and close with a brief discussion of processes that cause glaciation. The general climate of the earth is determined by the variation in the amount of sunshine received at different latitudes, by the earth’s rotation, and by the amount of arriving solar energy that is retained in the atmosphere.

scholarly journals Two critical books in the history of loess investigation: ‘Charakteristik der Felsarten’ by Karl Caesar von Leonhard and ‘Principles of Geology’ by Charles Lyell

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 447-451
Author(s):  
Ulrich Hambach ◽  
Ian Smalley
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Third ◽  
Worldwide Distribution ◽  
The World ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rhine Valley ◽  
Principles Of Geology ◽  
Short Section

Abstract The two critical books, launching the study and appreciation of loess, were ‘Charakteristik der Felsarten’ (CdF) by Karl Caesar von Leonhard, published in Heidelberg by Joseph Engelmann, in 1823-4, and ‘Principles of Geology’ (PoG) by Charles Lyell, published in London by John Murray in 1830-3. Each of these books was published in three volumes and in each case the third volume contained a short piece on loess (about 2-4 pages). These two books are essentially the foundations of loess scholarship. In CdF Loess [Loefs] was first properly defined and described; section 89 in vol. 3 provided a short study of the nature and occurrence of loess, with a focus on the Rhine valley. In PoG there was a short section on loess in the Rhine valley; this was in vol.3 and represents the major dissemination of loess awareness around the world. A copy of PoG3 (Principles of Geology vol. 3) reached Charles Darwin on the Beagle in Valparaiso in 1834; worldwide distribution. Lyell and von Leonhard met in Heidelberg in 1832. Von Leonhard and Heinrich Georg Bronn (1800-1862) showed Lyell the local loess. These observations provided the basis for the loess section in PoG3. Lyell acknowledged the influence of his hosts when he added a list of loess scholars to PoG; by the 5th edition in 1837 the list comprised H.G. Bronn, Karl Caesar von Leonhard (1779-1862), Ami Boue (1794-1881), Voltz, Johann Jakob Noeggerath (1788-1877), J. Steininger, P. Merian, Rozet, C.F.H. von Meyer (1801-1869), Samuel Hibbert (1782-1848) and Leonard Horner (1785-1864); a useful list of loess pioneers. The loess is a type of ground that has only recently been established, and it seems, the peculiarity of the Rhine region, and of a very general but inconsistent spread.” H.G. Bronn 1830

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