Most geoscientists today have the unenviable task of elucidating the reasons and consequences of global warming to the highly interested public. This task is a direct result of the nature and magnitude of the global warming problem, and is made difficult for conscientious scientists because the popular press often engineers debate between experts who truly understand the science of climate change and others whose negative discourse expresses beliefs or fears based on religion, politics, or commerce. This unprecedented connection to the public goes well beyond the scientific leaders of the related major research programs: the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme, the World Climate Research Program, and Diversitas, which deals with the study of species diversity. Yet, few in the scientific community truly understand the nuances involved in crafting the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Syvitski, J.P.M. 2009. Review of Global Warming: The Complete Briefing (Fourth Edition), by J.T. Houghton. Oceanography 22(3):270–271, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2009.90.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.