IN June the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill to curb U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Listening to the preceding debate, NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt was struck by the conversation’s lack of factual content.

   ”There were good reasons not to support the bill, but you only heard the stupid reasons (from the representatives),” he says. “They were trying to score political points. It’s easier to dismiss the science than face up to the fact that you have to do something about it.”

   To provide a source of information “uncolored by partisan bickering,” Mr. Schmidt has teamed with photographer Joshua Wolfe to create Climate Change: Picturing the Science (W.W. Norton & Company, $24.95), a collection of essays from scientific experts in union with photographs and satellite imagery that portray the earth’s shifting climate.

   Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wolfe will appear at Barnes & Noble in West Windsor July 16 to present a slide show, take questions, and sign books.

   ”People love the fact that we’re talking to them straightforward and honestly,” Mr. Schmidt says. During events, “You can answer their questions and see what they’re concerned about, and that’s very illuminating.”

   The science of climate change is thoroughly complex, and the subject is made more so by the political and economic effects that can occur by addressing it. Climate Change is organized into three parts — Symptoms, Diagnosis and Possible Cures — with the goal of presenting the scientific consensus on what we know and don’t know about the topic.

   ”The public is being ill served,” Mr. Schmidt says of the national conversation about climate change. “We’re trying in our little way to better serve them. There’s very little for people, if they’re curious, to feed that hunger. This is a way to do that. We can make a book that is accessible and beautiful, but doesn’t bash people over the head.”

   Based in New York City, Mr. Wolfe, a freelance documentary and commercial photographer, is the founder and president of GHC Photos, a collective of photographers who focus on climate and environment issues. His interest in climate change occurred “almost by happenstance,” he says. “I didn’t study science. (‘Climate Change’) is the book I wish existed when I first got interested in it.”

   Before An Inconvenient Truth premiered, before there was consensus that climate change is real, Mr. Wolfe simply began investigating the issue on his own. “I realized there weren’t many good pictures of the subjects I was reading about,” he says.

   The typical photo associated with climate change is of a hurricane or polar bear, Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Schmidt agree. The pair first worked together on Photographers’ Perspectives on Global Warming, a 2005 gallery exhibition in Brooklyn. Contributing photographers contacted Mr. Schmidt, a climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, to fact check their captions.

   ”From there we saw there was a bit of overlap between their desire to get away from cliches in images and my desire to get away from cliches in headlines,” Mr. Schmidt says.

   Mr. Wolfe’s desire to present a greater depth of imagery led to Climate Change’s inclusion of images from the ocean floor to the atmosphere, and “everything in between,” he says.

   The challenges of creating a visual record that conveys climate change through images are mainly intellectual, Mr. Wolfe says. “Photography, by nature, does well by war and catastrophe.” Climate change is different. The event is long-term, complex and not particularly suited for deadline photojournalism. (Many pictures are the result of months of research and arrangement, Mr. Wolfe says.)

   ”Most people don’t look into this in detail,” Mr. Schmidt says. “I don’t anticipate everyone will sit down and do a semester on climate change. What worries me in the public debate is it’s become much more polarized.”

   The pundits and politicians stating their case for or against climate change often violate a fundamental of scientific enquiry, Mr. Schmidt says. They begin with a fixed position and choose facts to support their argument. “That’s the opposite of how science works,” he says. “(Scientists) investigate uncertainties and try to pin them down as best we can. We are continually in this mode of dealing with uncertainty everyday.”

   Mr. Schmidt is the co-founder and contributing editor of the blog RealClimate.org, a place where, he says, he is in constant “reaction mode.” The conversation can be informative for those already educated on climate change, but unhelpful for the rest.

   ”Most people are smart,” he says. “If they take the time to think about something, they can make up their own minds. It’s really about democracy and informing people. The Internet is not the savior in this type of thing. What people get now are increasing piles of horse manure.”

   The House bill is on its way to the Senate, where legislators are expected to challenge its far-reaching provisions. The bill passed the House by only seven votes, with four Democrats and 168 Republicans in opposition.

   Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Schmidt refuse to advocate any precise solution to climate change, though they unequivocally present in the book’s introduction the need for action and leadership.

   ”What should be clear from reading this book is that we have concluded, as have scientists, assessment panels, and national academies all over the world, that human-induced climate change is ongoing and has the potential to create dangerous consequences for human society if we continue down a business-as-usual path.”