Waking the Giant

How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Bill McGuire

• Draws together research from different areas, introducing a growing area of research
• Looks back at the Earth's past to consider what our future might hold
• Demonstrates how the various systems of the Earth interact, showing that the scale and range of hazards from climate change may be greater than we have appreciated

Waking the Giant

How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Bill McGuire

Description

Waking the Giant

How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Bill McGuire

Table of Contents

Waking the Giant

How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Bill McGuire

Author Information

Waking the Giant

How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Bill McGuire

Reviews and Awards

Waking the Giant

How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Bill McGuire

From Our Blog

Bill McGuire on the geological consequences of climate change

Could it be that we are on track to bequeath to our children and their children not only a far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious one? Already there are signs that the effects of climbing global temperatures are causing the sleeping giant to stir once again.

Posted on January 18, 2013

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Climate change: causing volcanoes to go pop

By Bill McGuire When I first mention to someone that a changing climate is capable of causing volcanoes to go pop or the ground to shake, they think that I am either mad or having them on. Usually, this is just because they have not given the idea much thought, so that when I am given the opportunity to explain how this works they often become quite keen on the notion. Of course, the dyed-in-the-wool climate denier ideologues are already attacking the whole thesis; not on the basis of arguments rooted in science, but because it does not fit with their blinkered world view.

Posted on March 14, 2012

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Waking the Giant at Edinburgh International Book Festival

By Bill McGuire If it's August, it must be Edinburgh. Doing the rounds of the UK's book festivals is always great fun, but the Edinburgh International Book Festival is almost inevitably the annual highlight. While the book festival is exciting in its own right, this is in large part because the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe are in full spate, packing this great city with visitors from far and wide, and with acts and events that boggle even the most unflappable mind.

Posted on August 20, 2012

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Will climate change cause earthquakes?

In Waking the Giant, Bill McGuire argues that now that human activities are driving climate change as rapidly as anything seen in post-glacial times, the sleeping giant beneath our feet is stirring once again. The close of the last Ice Age saw not only a huge temperature hike but also the Earth's crust bouncing and bending in response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins ' dramatic geophysical events that triggered earthquakes, spawned tsunamis, and provoked a series of eruptions from the world's volcanoes.

Posted on March 12, 2012

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