This is the most comprehensive and current reference resource on climate change available today. It features forty-nine individual chapters by some of the world's leading climate scientists. Its five sections address climate change in five dimensions: ecological impacts, policy analysis, international considerations, United States considerations, and mitigation options to reduce carbon emissions. In many ways, this volume supersedes the ''Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change'' (''IPCC''). Many important developments too recent to be treated in the 2007 IPCC documents are covered here. Overall, ''Climate Change Science and Policy'' paints a direr picture of the effects of climate change than do the IPCC reports. It reveals that climate change has progressed faster than the IPCC reports anticipated and that the outlook for the future is bleaker than the IPCC reported.