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Anonymous states:

"Titles would be good but please omit the ones which misrepresent facts (like Gore's film)."

If you look at my previous blog entries, you will note that there are places where I take issue with otherwise correct pieces. Here is an example, which laments a particularly regrettable use of an "icon" by Gore:

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/kilimanjaro-poster-child-13432.html

That entry also warns people not to conclude that the accelerated glacier melting elsewhere in the world should be discounted. In other words, one example was chosen without sufficient scientific care, but the overall conclusion is still valid. Glaciologists studying the other glaciers Gore discusses conclude that their accelerated melting can be reasonably attributed to human activity.

On the whole, I find Gore's presentation and the documentary based on it to be accurate. Not perfect but on target.

For instance, Gore's famous coastal flooding diagram is based on a worst-case scenario of polar ice-sheet melting. A scientist would be more careful and insert a disclaimer. But the point he is trying to make is that the diagram does indeed represent a plausible scenario. The biggest uncertainty in the IPCC projection of sea level rise is that it leaves out the phenomenon of dynamic melting, in which surface ice flows more quickly into the ocean due to lubrication caused by melting underneath.

Without dynamic melting, the Gore scenario would come about in several hundred to several thousand years depending on the amount of positive feedback due to less reflective polar regions. With dynamic melting, there is a small but nontrivial chance that my grandchildren, who are currently in third grade and preschool, will live to see it. Isn't that reason enough to be concerned?

As for specific titles, I suggest you start here:
http://www.scienceshelf.com/WeatherMakers_FieldNotes.htm

That link is a comparative review of Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers and Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe. You'll note that I am a bit critical of Flannery on one point, but I admire the book on the whole.

After you have read those books, come back for further discussion.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)