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Summary: Confirmed by the Pentagon
Review: When I first read the book I thought it was enjoyable, but trashy. The science in it seemed pretty far fetched. But the theories outlined in the book have gained more and more scientific credence. The Pentagon has even warned of the possibility of exactly the situation described in the book and has recommended that the US prepare for it. ...
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Summary: Do not judge the messengers
Review: I admit Bell and Whitley are flaky but did you read Discover amagazine's Oct. 2002 articel on how global warming could lead to a new Ice Age? The famous Woods Hole Institute is not flaky and they confirm Bell's findings The book needs a Bibliography and detailed footnotes and source references. But this is not to be ridiculed.
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Summary: Great Entertainment - Pure Science Nonsense
Review: Great fun to read... but scientifically it's all hot gas.
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Summary: Entertaining balderdash posing as science
Review: Excellent homespun balderdash that devastates earthling fantasies of warm continents. As a fan of Art Bell's radio comedies, I strongly recommend this book for people who like to be entertained before going to bed. Someone earlier mentioned the lack of a bibliography..OOPS..wrong...they did refer to a couple of knowledgable trucker calls on pp.___ and ___. Turns out the same trucker also discovered mummified hyenas in his vacation home and was briefly spirited away by a backwoods monster. The coming storm is better than nitrous oxide!
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Summary: WHAT THEY WROTE IS HAPPENING
Review: Please, take a moment to read this book and then look around you at the world. What they wrote is now taking place. The oceans currents are changing.The Gulf flow is changing. Woods Hole Oceanographic Instituite just released a report and they have evidence, that in our lifetimes, we will witness major global changes See this article for yourself http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=484490 Published in the Independent.Co.UK on January 25th, 2004, they say in part:
"A study, which is being taken seriously by top government scientists, has uncovered a change "of remarkable amplitude" in the circulation of the waters of the North Atlantic. Similar events in pre-history are known to have caused sudden "flips" of the climate, bringing ice ages to northern Europe within a few decades. The development - described as "the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments", by the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which led the research - threatens to turn off the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe's weather mild." What will it take for us to listen?
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Summary: Radio Guy Goes Nuts in Book - Part II
Review: Art's first book has an analogy: it was like giving a kid a Ferrari. He had the money and market to command a book but a wreck soon occured. Art Bell is an extremely succesful radio man and his show just dominates the nightime radio waves when he is on the air. I always feel sorry for anyone taking his place when he has a sore back or is on one of his leaves. The ratings must plummet when he stops talking. Also as a former disc jockey from Japan or similar he has selected outstanding bumper music that just pumps the show up and keeps all those all nightime truckers awake and jumping. Sometimes, about 10%-20% of the time, he has excellent solid and well qualified guests - people that are well known scientists or similar who have their heads screwed on tight. The rest of the time (as with this book with Whitley) his show is pure fanatasy made up of various people talking to the dead, seeing UFO's, communicating by "remote viewing", seeing "shadow people", predicting the end of the planet and the like. These ideas have as much merit as the mist that evaporates when the sun rises as the show ends. This makes great radio, but when pen goes to paper and entertainment tries to become science, or a science book, it becomes an exercise in (scary) fiction to augment his radio income. Strieber either believes this clap-trap or is along for the ride. I cannot see this effort as scientific or accurate with any credibility. It is entertainment pure and simple. It was published because Art's name is there as an author and market draw. Otherwise it does not pass the proverbial laugh test. Maybe somewhere "shadow people" are reading the book using "remote viewing" and enjoying it. My humble opinion. Jack in Toronto
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Summary: Intriguing Speculation on Imminent Weather Catastrophe
Review: "The Coming Global Superstorm" rates five stars if for no other reason than it is a very thought-provoking book that will be sure to make the reader think about the implications of human induced climate change. Authors Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, better known as paranormal experts than climate change experts, have written a wildly speculative book that blends meteorolgical fact (the world is warmer than it used to be), with dire warning of imminent catastrophe (the northern hemisphere will experience a "superstorm" that will lead to a new ice age in our lifetime). The basic premise is that global warming adds so much energy to weather systems that eventually a superstorm will snow so much over the entire northern hemisphere, that it will actually "tip" the planet into an ice age that could last hundreds to thousands of years. The authors hypothesize that ice ages do not begin gradually, but instead the onset of an ice age occurs quite rapidly, within a week of previously warm climate conditions. One of their key pieces of evidence is that the remains of wooly mammoths have been found frozen with plants in their stomach that could only grow in warm climates, and yet the frozen remains of the mammoth were discovered in areas that became glaciated during the last ice age. Their implication is: one day the climate was warm, the next day it was an ice age. One of the other key points that seem to lend scientific credibility to their somewhat implausible scenario is a detailed description of how the warming of arctic waters will prevent the warmer north-flowing gulf stream waters from the tropics from mixing with the colder arctic waters. This results in a large mass of relatively cold water sitting off of northeastern U.S. and Canada, and it is this mass of cold water (no longer warmed by the gulf stream) that is the genesis of the "superstorm". Implausible? Absolutely. Ridiculous? Of course. A fascinating book? Yes, without a doubt.
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Summary: The story is even boring..
Review: This book is fiction. The title makes it seem like there is some huge superstorm coming our way, but it is just the story of what it would be like if there was a pole shift and how it would affect the world. The story grabs your attention at first and is a bit scary in parts however quickly becomes very boring. I didn't even make it to the end of the book and I hardly ever don't finish a book.
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Summary: At least very entertaining
Review: From the reviews seen herein, this is obviously a controversial topic. And that's exactly what the author tackles - he reviews current theories for extinctions, etc., and slowly shows their obvious flaws and wonders why those theories haven't been updated to account for known problems, rather than just ignoring them. In turn he boldly submits his own theories that seem to fit the evidence better, as unconventional as they are. Whether you believe in his theories or not, they are quite compelling, especially given our current global climate changes. And the story he provides every third chapter is thrilling to say the least. It is a quick, exciting read.
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Summary: "SCIENCE" THAT WOULD SHAME A HIGH-SCHOOLER
Review: The Strieber/Bell scenario, in brief: (a) global warming causes melting of glaciers & sea-surface pack ice at high latitudes, dumping lots of fresh water into the oceans, & somehow inducing the Gulf Stream to flow straight west, rather than looping around the north Atlantic. (Presumably something similar happens around Antarctica, tho' this isn't made clear.) (b) Europe freezes. (c) An increase in thermal differential between high & low latitudes, & between lower & upper atmosphere, causes a ring of monster storms around the polar front, which merge into a single gigantic circumpolar storm burying everything north of Florida under umpty-ump feet of snow & ice. Everybody, speaking broadly, dies. Civilization as we know it, etc. Among many points not explained: (a) how the authors deal the awkward fact that the thermal differential between high & low latitudes is DEcreasing, not INcreasing (sc., poles are warming more than equator); (b) why, if melting the ice at the pole would force the Gulf Stream south, promptly replacing it with a new glacier wouldn't draw it right back up again; (c) how superheated surface air, rising to unprecedented heights into an unprecedentedly cold upper atmosphere, could fall back to the surface in a superchilled state, freezing everybody below it like Italian ices. (Hints: upper air is extremely thin; dense surface air rising into it would expand, cooling but thinning; falling back to earth, it would necessarily recondense & reheat. This is elementary gas law. If air at 1% of sea-level pressure WERE somehow forced back to ground-level unrecondensed, people would suffocate before they froze.) In short, the scenario depicted can't happen, for a host of fairly obvious reasons. Global warming is real, but won't cause a global superstorm. This book reads like an unpersuasive attempt to scientify something first seen in the eye of pure novelistic imagination.
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