Contents -- Editor's Foreword -- Author's Foreword -- The Scientific Principles -- 1 The Climate and the Earth System -- 1.1 Weather and Climate -- 1.2 The Oceans -- 1.3 Sea Ice -- 1.4 The Continental Ice Sheets -- 1.5 Vegetation -- 2 The Greenhouse Effect -- 2.1 The Composition of the Atmosphere -- 2.2 The Natural Greenhouse Effect -- 2.3 The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Effect -- 2.4 The Global Carbon Balance -- 2.5 The Ozone Problem -- 3 Climate Variability and Prediction -- 3.1 Why Does the Climate Fluctuate? -- 3.2 El Niño/Southern Oscillation -- 3.3 The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) -- 3.4 The Influence of Volcanoes -- 3.5 The Ice Age Cycles -- 3.6 Abrupt Climate Changes -- 3.7 The Predictability of the Climate -- 4 Climate Modeling -- 4.1 Climate Models -- 4.2 Clouds and Precipitation -- 4.3 The Role of Condensation Trails -- 4.4 The Lorenz Model -- 4.5 What Is the Gulf Stream and How Will It Behave in the Future? -- The Climate of the 20th and 21st Centuries -- 5 Man's Influence on the Climate -- 5.1 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- 5.2 What Changes Can Already Be Seen Today? -- 5.3 Whose Fault Are the Changes? -- 5.4 Mankind's Fingerprint -- 6 Climate Change Scenarios for the Future -- 6.1 The Inertia of the Climate -- 6.2 What Will the Future Bring? -- 6.3 The Climate in Europe in the Mid-21st Century -- 6.4 How Much Will the Sea Level Rise? -- 6.5 The Acidification of the Oceans -- Strategies for the Future -- 7 The Public Discourse -- 7.1 The Role of the Media -- 7.2 The Skeptics -- 8 What must be done? -- 8.1 The Kyoto Protocol -- 8.2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions -- 8.3 Options for Action -- 8.4 How Do We Deal with the Climate Problem? -- Glossary -- Bibliography.