Climate Change and Life, The Complex Co-evolution of Climate and Life on Earth, and Beyond

Climate Change and Life: The Complex Co-evolution of Climate and Life on Earth, and Beyond covers in broad brushes the critical tectonic and biogeochemical cycles that drive climate and shape the modern world. It also compares the history of Earth to the histories of Venus and Mars, including new findings of Martian climate change. Climate Change and Life is multidisciplinary and will instruct readers on the range of extremes in climate and biogeochemical cycling that shape life on Earth. Topics covered include climate drivers on Earth (atmospheric gases, non-gaseous particulates in the atmosphere, etc.), various techniques to assess past climates, mass extension drivers, as well as predictions about the future and climate change mitigation strategies.

Climate Change and Life takes a long view on climate change and evolution while also focusing on the defining moments in Earth history where critical thresholds and events occur. Climate scientists, earth scientists, environmental scientists, researchers in all other areas of science that are related to climate change will find value in the research presented in this book.

Dr. Gabriel Filippelli is a Professor of Earth Sciences and Director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University. Filippelli is a biogeochemist with broad training in climate change in marine and terrestrial systems. Filippelli has published broadly, including publications in Science, Nature and Geology as well as in specialty journals and in popular press. He has personally directed over $6M of research funding over his career and is currently a co-PI on the $55M Indiana University Prepared for Environmental Change Grand Challenge initiative. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for the journal GeoHealth, published by the American Geophysical Union. Filippelli is a Fellow of the International Association of Geochemistry, and former National Academy of Sciences Jefferson Fellow, where he served as a Senior Science Advisor for the State Department, with a policy portfolio including Science Cooperation in the Arctic, Antarctic climate change, and Marine Debris and Plastics.

I. Earth over the past 4.5 billion years—a brief history
II. Climate drivers on Earth
III. Early Earth as a cradle for life
IV. Oxygen accumulation and the first major life-climate interactions
V. The not-so-boring billion
VI. Snowball Earth and the most extreme climate states that the Earth has experienced
VII. Emergence of land plants and the formation of the Earth’s Critical Zone
VIII. Massive extinction drivers and climate impacts
IX. From Greenhouse to Ice-House: the co-evolution of life and climate through the Cenozoic
X. Climate and Humans