Antarctic Climate Evolution is the first book dedicated to furthering knowledge on the evolution of the world's largest ice sheet over its ~34 million year history. This volume provides the latest information on subjects ranging from terrestrial and marine geology to sedimentology and glacier geophysics. - An overview of Antarctic climate change, analyzing historical, present-day and future developments - Contributions from leading experts and scholars from around the world - Informs and updates climate change scientists and experts in related areas of study

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Antarctic Research Series, Volume 79. The Antarctic Peninsula region represents our best natural laboratory to investigate how earth's major climate systems interact and how such systems respond to rapid regional warming. The scale of environmental changes now taking place across the region is large and their pace rapid but the subsystems involved are still small enough to observe and accurately document cause and affect mechanisms. For example, clarification of ice shelf stability via the Larsen Ice Shelf is vital to understanding the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet, its climate evolution, and its response to and control of sea level. By encompassing the broadest range of interdisciplinary studies, this volume provides the global change research and educational communities a framework in which to advance our knowledge of the causes behind regional warming, the dramatic glacial and ecological responses, and the potential uniqueness of the event within the region's paleoclimate record. The volume also serves as a vital resource for public policy and governmental funding agencies as well as a means to educate the large number of ecotourists that visit the region each austral summer.

Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second Edition, enhances our understanding of the history of the world's largest ice sheet, and how it responded to and influenced climate change during the Cenozoic. It includes terrestrial and marine geology, sedimentology, glacier geophysics and ship-borne geophysics, coupled with results from numerical ice sheet and climate modeling. The book's content largely mirrors the structure of the Past Antarctic Ice Sheets (PAIS) program (www.scar.org/science/pais), formed to investigate past changes in Antarctica by supporting multidisciplinary global research. This new edition reflects recent advances and is updated with several new chapters, including those covering marine and terrestrial life changes, ice shelves, advances in numerical modeling, and increasing coverage of rates of change. The approach of the PAIS program has led to substantial improvement in our knowledge base of past Antarctic change and our understanding of the factors that have guided its evolution. - Offers an overview of Antarctic climate change, analyzing historical, present-day and future developments - Provides the latest information on subjects ranging from terrestrial and marine geology to sedimentology and glacier geophysics in the context of Antarctic evolution - Fully updated to include expanded coverage of rates of change, advances in numerical modeling, marine and terrestrial life changes, ice shelves, and more

Journeying to the most alien place on the planet, science writer Walker presents a biography of Antarctica, weaving its history of exploration with the science currently being conducted there. Walker gives glimpses at the marvelous creatures clinging to life above and below the ice.