Climate Changes in the Holocene: : Impacts and Human Adaptation

Palaeoclimatology is the study of past climates and climate change, and uses a variety of methods to obtain data preserved within rocks, sediments, ice, tree rings, and shells and other matter. Studies of past changes in the environment and biodiversity can reflect on the current state of the environment, the impacts of climate on mass extinctions, adaptations, migrations, etc. This book focuses on the Holocene Epoch (approximately 11,700 years ago to the present day), and shows how climate changes can be reliably correlated with archaeological evidence. It will examine the impact of climate changes on humans and civilization through case studies from various places, periods, and climates.

This book highlights climate as a complex physical, chemical, biological, and geological system, in perpetual change, under astronomical, predominantly, solar control. It has been shaped to some degree through the past glaciation cycles repeated in the last three million years. The Holocene, the current interglacial epoch which started ca. 11,700 years ago, marks the transition from the Stone Age to the unprecedented cultural evolution of our civilization.

Significant climate changes have been recorded in natural archives during the Holocene, including the rapid waning of ice sheets, millennial shifting of the monsoonal fringe in the northern hemisphere, and abrupt centennial events. A typical case of severe environmental change is the greening of Sahara in the Early Holocene and the gradual desertification again since the fifth millennium before present.

investigates the impact of natural climate changes on humans and civilization through case studies from various places, periods, and climates. Earth and human society are approached as a complex system, thereby emphasizing the necessity to improve adaptive capacity in view of the anthropogenic global warming and ecosystem degradation.

Features:

• Written by distinguished experts, the book presents the fundamentals of the climate system, the unparalleled progress achieved in the last decade in the fields of intensified research for improved understanding of the carbon cycle, climate components, and their interaction.
• Presents the application of paleoclimatology and modeling in climate reconstruction.
• Examines the new era of satellite-based climate monitoring and the prospects of reduced carbon dioxide emissions.