‘The Atlas of a Changing Climate’ Puts the Idea of Warming Into Images

Fundamentals and details explained in Brian Buma’s 2021 book

“The future is a moving target,” Brian Buma writes in The Atlas of a Changing Climate. Temperate latitudes are expected to dry, while everywhere else will get wetter. Freshwater supplies will change; this may not be obvious, as water is underground. Trees will be affected; this happens slowly and then all at once. The disappearance of the mylomys, last sighted in 2009, is the first known extinction of a mammal to have been caused by climate change in our era. Species today are going extinct at an increasing rate — at least hundreds, maybe thousands, of times faster than they have in the past.

The Atlas of a Changing Climate explains the science of the systems that support life in a “relatable and understandable” way, admitting that readers may react with “wonder” or “despair.” It is gorgeously illustrated with maps and diagrams, old and new, that explain the issues.

“Each color represents a North American drainage basin…this is the world the rains experience on their journey from the clouds to the sea.” —Brian Buma

The Size of the Planet

As far as the eye can see is not very far at all. At an average adult height, standing in an unobstructed area, turning in a circle, we can see about 30 square miles in panorama. But the surface of the globe is 6.5 million times that area. Thus, Buma…