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. |
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