After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America

Science is data-driven. What we know is based only on the data we acquire and its careful interpretation. Debates about climate change often occur in an over-heated atmosphere, with those opposed to the notion that manmade influences are driving the global climate shift often beginning their arguments with the statement that "the climate changes naturally". True enough. Over the 4.6 billion year lifespan of our planet, it's safe to assume that the weather has changed. It is the magnitude of the changes, and their rapidity, that has caught the attention of scientists. The end of the Pleistocene Epoch and the beginning of the Holocene, the past 20,000 years or so, marks the end of the last glaciation, known as the Wisconsin glaciation, and the beginning of the present interglacial. There seems no reason to doubt that a new glaciation should begin. Short term trends, measured in centuries, have varied, with periods of relative warmth and then cooling. The Little Ice Age, which began around 800 years ago and was a particularly rigorous period in our history, seems to have ended with a warming period persisting from the mid-19th century until the 1940s, at which time a short cooling trend set in that seems to have reversed itself about 1970. The trend has been unremittingly upward since then, accelerating in the magnitude of the temperature increase. It is the trends and not individual years that are important. Since we are in the cooling phase of an interglacial period, there is one inescapable fact: the glaciers should be advancing and not retreating. That would be the natural trend. But they are not advancing, they are most definitely retreating worldwide. From continent to continent, everywhere we look, the ice is melting. This is the antithesis of what they should be doing naturally. It is most probably a manmade trend. And that is the worrisome aspect of recent climatic events.E. C. Pielou has written the finest book on that strange period when the ice disappeared and flora and fauna fitfully returned to the ice-ravaged landscape of glaciated North America. The large mammals, such as mastodons, mammoths, sabertooth cats and giant short-faced bears, were the most spectacular immigrants. The small human population of 10,000 years ago may be to blame for their extinction: another sobering thought. It is the dramatic destructiveness of the glaciers, the titanic changes in the environment caused by natural climate change, and what it takes to reintegrate a pre-ice age biosphere that has changed almost beyond recognition, that Pielou outlines so beautifully. Pielou does not speculate on issues of global warming. What she does do is brilliantly portray the breathtaking magnitude of global climate change. It only requires a little imagination to recognize that if humanity is indeed changing the long-term natural course of the weather, then we are playing with fire. When it comes to the issue of climate change, it is best to ignore the arguments. First acquire the facts: acquire them truthfully and without prejudice, especially without economic or political prejudice. Then proceed from there. This book is strongly recommended for best outlining the facts without imposing an ideology or agenda. And in the end it is the facts that make the issue of climate change so worrisome for thinking people.Mike Birman

If I were writing this book, I’d tell a story. My narrative would follow a natural chronology, telling of the spread of glaciers and then the transformation of the landscape they leave behind.Pielou chose a different path. She emphasizes the process of scientific discovery, the nature of scientific debates, and makes a point of teaching us the scientific method. For example, she explains how carbon-14 dating works, how one uses pollen data from a core sample, and how scientists figure out a species’ historic range. She explains it all well, and I can easily imagine enjoying her lectures if I were a student.The overall effect is a focus on the minutiae. Brine shrimp eggs and the presence of water milfoil tell us much about a post-glacial lake. If I were a paleoecologist, this book would train my eye. As a non-specialist, however, I was looking for a story. Whether this book is right for you will depend on what you want from it.

For thousands of years huge glaciers covered a good portion of North America. What was the land like during that time? The climate? The life? What kinds of changes occurred when the ice sheets started to withdraw? Pielou's book covers it all in fine style, explaining the ecological alterations that would lead to today's world. Her writing is clear and it smoothly takes you through a number if different disciplines: geology, biology and climatology to name a few. Each section of the book addresses a different issue: Beringia and the Ice Free Corridor, the mysteries of nunataks and Refugia, the dating of pollen and volcanic ash layers. Both sides of the Prehistoric Overkill Hypothesis are covered in some detail. While Pielou wrote this for the general reader there are some parts of the book that are a bit technical but not so technical that you can't follow the narrative. If you are at all interested in paleontology and the problems faced by plants, animals and, yes, humans in a changing world then you may find this to be a good read. I did.I had no technical problems with my Kindle edition.LastRanger

I give it four stars only because the information is dated. The book is well written for people with a good understanding of science. It is heavily referenced so you can get to the information the author used to write the book. It may get a little too detailed for some people. The book goes into depth about how the different dating processes work and where the concerns with the dating processes occur. That makes it a very good starting point to understand the science behind how the environments of the past are reconstructed for analysis today. The later chapters are arranged to explain how the different regions of North America recovered and are still recovering from the environmental and physical effects of the ice sheet today.

Written in 1990, this book largely predates the current concern with global warming, but it does put into perspective current popular belief that there is a "normal" climate similar to what we've been experiencing over the past 500 years or so. Geological history shows that for the past 2 million years the global climate has regularly fluctuated between 100,000 years of bitter cold, i.e. repeated ice ages, interspersed with short, 10,000 year intervals of warm weather - like we've had for the past 10,000 years! In the 1960s and 1970s, predictions based on this were that we were headed into another 100,000 year cycle of bitter cold. Then came global warming! Humans have released so many tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, starting with widespread agricultural and animal husbandry, over the past 500 years, that the descent into the ice box has been delayed, even possibly reversed. This confirms what I have been learning the last few years with selective reading.

This book was so dope. I'm still plowing through it, but I love it. It really gets the imagination going, imagining all these icebergs and giant dilophondons and shiet. If my life wasn't so messed up right now I would have read it in a week. I initially bought it to learn about the hypsithermal warm period, but I haven't even gotten that far yet. The author presents multiple points of view on the same subjects, since many of these biogeoclimatological events don't have clear enough causes or sufficient evidence to back one explanation or theory over another. I highly recommend.

Canada's recent essence as a recognizable landmass is a history repeated biological invasions, largely moderated by the distribution of ice and water, which themselves are influenced by many factors at many scales, from the cosmic behavior of the planet to local chance.

Pkay, but bit of a dull read

Well done!