Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Most Americans associate global warming with ice melting in some remote place. In the absence of local effects, people remain fairly unconcerned. Cullen, a senior research scientist at the nonprofit organization Climate Central and an environmental reporter, capitalizes on her media celebrity to predict global warming effects worldwide on a timescale covering the next 40 years. Using a conversational mode, the author makes a case for the reliability of climate models and explains how they differ slightly with their inputs. A chapter on paleoclimate introduces research methods and provides a baseline for the warming now underway because of CO^D[2 emissions. She makes the case that extreme weather events will become even more frequent and devastating during the lifetimes of most Americans. Cullen explains concepts and terms simply but effectively. She describes current circumstances and projects the near future for seven critical regions, including the North American Arctic and New York City. Current scholarly research documented in footnotes supports her statements. Though she does not discuss the arguments made against the consensus views held by the scientific community, her presentation is thoughtful and reasonable. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. L. S. Zipp formerly, State University of New York College at Geneseo

School Library Journal
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Gr 10 Up-What happens when you add a bit of extra heat to the climate system? Cullen assembles data and interview results from scientists on the ground in seven locations around the world to give us an idea of just how bad "bad" might be as well as offering positive options. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly
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This engrossing study predicts global warming scenarios for seven hot spots around the world-and evaluates the responses of communities, governments, and international organizations. Cullen, a climatologist, notes that "just as our brain is hardwired to perceive threats that are most immediate to us, we are hardwired to devote more energy to caring about the weather than to caring about the climate," and that "by the time you see it in the weather... it's too late." With some ecosystems, such as the overtaxed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which the entire state of California depends on for water, "people would rather simply hope for a happy ending." In contrast, in the Arctic, the Inuit are responding to climate change and incorporating technology into their traditional hunting methods, and New York City "has decided to fix the climate bug now" with its Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. Despite the worry among scientists that humans will follow "the woolly mammoth, the symbol of a climate that no longer exists," the book presents a surprisingly optimistic view of humanity's determination to come to terms with a daunting future. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

It sounds like the outline for the next movie by Roland Emmerich, director of The Day After and 2012: in the near future, our world's weather has drastically changed as a result of today's environmental issues (including global warming). Floods wash over major cities. Coral reefs dissolve from supersaturated salt water. The Arctic permafrost melts, releasing huge amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. Using climate-model projections to forecast tomorrow's (potential) weather, the author takes us through the next 40-odd years, painting a rather gloomy picture of what's in store for our planet and offering some suggestions about what we can do today to avoid catastrophe. Some readers might dismiss the book as a manifestation of Chicken Little syndrome, but others, noting the author's calm, reasonable tone and sensible extrapolations from present-day phenomena, will no doubt conclude that this is a woman to whom attention must be paid.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal
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Cullen works for the nonprofit Climate Central, where she reports on climate change for several media outlets, and she was previously with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. In this, her first book, she predicts the negative effects that climate change will have on several regions especially vulnerable to global warming. Warmer temperatures will lead to higher sea levels and weather extremes, including more frequent and severe floods and droughts. In the book's second half, Cullen analyzes the future weather of Africa's Sahel, Australia's Great Barrier Reef, California's Central Valley, the Arctic, Bangladesh, and New York City. Each analysis includes a fictional forecast of these places' future climates, describing climate effects up to 2050. Overall, the book focuses more on the effects of climate change than future weather. An appendix gives heat forecasts for some U.S. cities through 2090. VERDICT Cullen offers nothing new about climatic changes, but her book may be of interest to those seeking a popular volume that describes and forecasts global warming's negative aspects.-Jeffrey Beall, Univ. of Colorado, Denver (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Fact-filled and entertaining yet disturbing depiction of our world as temperatures rise.In recent years, such gloomy predictions have become a genre. Gwynne Dyer's fine Climate Wars (2010) gave research priority over futurology. Veteran climatologist and TV guest expert Cullen reverses this order, emphasizing that global warming is not controversial. In the 19th century, scientists predicted it, and 20th-century researchers measured rising atmospheric, man-made carbon dioxide. In the 21st century, the Earth is already perceptibly warmer, writes the author. Humans react superbly to catastrophes, but only if they're imminent. To encourage a sense of urgency, Cullen delivers vivid depictions of the world during the next four decades, recognizable but heating up. The author does not limit herself to famine, war and mass migration, but includes efforts to ameliorate the crises andpossibly too latelower carbon emissions. In 2050, she envisions an immense array of solar cells across North Africa that will provide clean electricity to Europe and money to African nations whose marginal agriculture regions grow hotter and drier. Becoming a second Holland, Manhattan will build massive sea walls and reconstruct its infrastructure to fend off the rising ocean. Farmers will employ conservative techniques and new crops to deal with dwindling water and increasingly unpredictable weather. However, Cullen predicts that success will be spotty. Russia, Greenland and Canada will prosper as arctic ice disappears and land opens for exploitation, but this will only partly compensate for vanishing mountain snowpacks and the dwindling rivers that flow down to support agriculture in China, South Asia, South America and California. A lively and troubling but not entirely doomsday scenario of our warmer future, which will hopefully persuade readers to pay greater attention. See Peter Ward's upcoming The Flooded Earth for more information about rising sea levels.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.