Synopses & Reviews
The field of paleoclimatology relies on physical, chemical, and biological proxies of past climate changes that have been preserved in natural archives such as glacial ice, tree rings, sediments, corals, and speleothems. Paleoclimate archives obtained through field investigations, ocean sediment coring expeditions, ice sheet coring programs, and other projects allow scientists to reconstruct climate change over much of earth's history.
When combined with computer model simulations, paleoclimatic reconstructions are used to test hypotheses about the causes of climatic change, such as greenhouse gases, solar variability, earth's orbital variations, and hydrological, oceanic, and tectonic processes. This book is a comprehensive, state-of-the art synthesis of paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, emphasizing topics that shed light on modern trends in the earth's climate. Thomas M. Cronin discusses recent discoveries about past periods of global warmth, changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, abrupt climate and sea-level change, natural temperature variability, and other topics directly relevant to controversies over the causes and impacts of climate change. This text is geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in geology, geography, biology, glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and climate modeling, fields that contribute to paleoclimatology. This volume can also serve as a reference for those requiring a general background on natural climate variability.
Synopsis
The field of paleoclimatology draws on extensive empirical observations obtained from physical, chemical, and biological proxies preserved in natural archives. These include glacial ice, tree rings, sediments, corals, and stalagtites and stalagmites, which reconstruct patterns and interpret causes of past climate change. From ocean sediment coring expeditions to multi-year ice sheet coring programs, paleoclimatologists go to great lengths to test the numerous theories and hypotheses concerning the causes of earth's climate.
This book reviews state-of-the art paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, with an emphasis on the implications of past climate changes for modern trends in earth's climate. The text is geared specifically towards advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers within and outside of the immediate field of paleoclimatology. Thomas M. Cronin covers empirical paleo-records in significant detail, including detailed discussions of discoveries made over the last decade and their relationship to pressing controversies about climate change. More than 3,000 citations and 150 graphics make this text the most comprehensive, up-to-date synthesis of paleoclimatology available, each chapter featuring short summaries of landmark papers that caused paradigm shifts in the field.