The Southern Andes, stretching from the subtropics to the subantarctic, are ideally located for palaeoenvironmental research. Over the broad and continuous latitudinal extent of the cordillera (-24˚), vegetation is adjusted to climatic gradients and atmospheric circulation patterns.Opposed to the prevailing Southern Westerlies, the Southern Andes are positioned to receive the brunt of the winds, while biota are set to record the shifting of incoming storm systems over time. Sequential, latitudinally-placed, sedimentary deposits containing microfossils and macroremains, as archives of past vegetation and climate, make possible the detection of equatorward and poleward displacement of plant communities and, as a consequence, changes in climatic controls. No terrestrial setting in the Southern Hemisphere is so unique for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction during and since the last ice age. Twenty radiocarbon-dated fossil pollen and spore records chosen to place emphasis on the last ice age include high-resolution, submillennial data sets that also cover the Holocene, thus providing contrast between present interglacial and past glacial ages. From a refined data base, the records constitute the foundation for interpreting factors responsible for vegetation change over >50,000 14C years, glacial-interglacial migration and refugial patterns for a diversity of taxa, and the extent of intrahemispheric and polar hemispheric synchroneity versus asynchroneity.

This monograph reviews the nature of Quaternary environmental changes over the largest continent in the Southern Hemisphere. Moreover, since South America makes a transect across most climatic belts of an entire hemisphere, it provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of changing Quaternary climates on a variety of environments. It also forms the basis for judging the synchrony or non-synchrony of Quaternary climatic changes between hemispheres and this has important implications for climatic modelling.As South America has a dynamic tectonic regime along its western margin, 3 chapters discuss the geomorphological impact of Quaternary tectonics and volcanism. The following 6 chapters integrate evidence for Quaternary changes in the great alluvial basins of the Continent Orinoco, Amazon, Paranaacute;) and in the contiguous highland massifs (Guyana, Brazil, Patagonia). As parts of the Andes have been high enough to support glaciers since the late Miocene, 5 chapters review the nature and consequences of Quaternary glacier fluctuations. The following 4 chapters select major process-form systems that impacted the continent during the Quaternary, including geocryogenic activity, palaeolake development, palaeo-gravel formations and coastal changes. Three chapters provide the first major review of Quaternary vegetation changes in South America (primarily the Andes) deduced from palaeoecological data. The final chapter weaves most of the environmental threads together in an overall synthesis of the Quaternary of South America.The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and line diagrams. As it provides a compendium of data and analyses about Quaternary changes for a whole continent, this book should appeal to a wide range of environmental disciplines.

The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are widely considered to have been the major features of the Earth's climate over the past 1000 years. In this volume the issue of whether there really was a Medieval Warm Period, and if so, where and when, is addressed. The types of evidence examined include historical documents, tree rings, ice cores, glacial-geological records, borehole temperature, paleoecological data and records of solar receipts inferred from cosmogenic isotopes. Growth in the availability of several of these types of data in recent years, and technical advances in their derivation and use, warrant this state-of-the-art re-examination of Medieval Warm Period. The book will be of value to all those with an interest in the natural variability of the climate system, for example those concerned with anticipating and detecting anthropogenic climate change.

This Atlas illustrates the significant reduction in glacier mass happening throughout the Andean region. It quantifies the contribution of glaciers to drinking water supplies in cities and to agriculture, hydropower and industries. A reduction in glacier mass results in a long-term reduction in seasonal melt water - which is the mainstay of livelihoods for millions of people.

The evidence for the Little Ice Age, the most important fluctuation in global climate in historical times, is most dramatically represented by the advance of mountain glaciers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and their retreat since about 1850. The effects on the landscape and the daily life of people have been particularly apparent in Norway and the Alps. This major book places an extensive body of material relating to Europe, in the form of documentary evidence of the history of the glaciers, their portrayal in paintings and maps, and measurements made by scientists and others, within a global perspective. It shows that the glacial history of mountain regions all over the world displays a similar pattern of climatic events. Furthermore, fluctuations on a comparable scale have occurred at intervals of a millennium or two throughout the last ten thousand years since the ice caps of North America and northwest Europe melted away. This is the first scholarly work devoted to the Little Ice Age, by an author whose research experience of the subject has been extensive. This book includes large numbers of maps, diagrams and photographs, many not published elsewhere, and very full bibliographies. It is a definitive work on the subject, and an excellent focus for the work of economic and social historians as well as glaciologists, climatologists, geographers, and specialists in mountain environment.

Only in the last decade have climatologists developed an accurate picture of yearly climate conditions in historical times. This development confirmed a long-standing suspicion: that the world endured a 500-year cold snap -- The Little Ice Age -- that lasted roughly from A.D. 1300 until 1850. The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today's global warming. With its basis in cutting-edge science, The Little Ice Age offers a new perspective on familiar events. Renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold affected Norse exploration; how changing sea temperatures caused English and Basque fishermen to follow vast shoals of cod all the way to the New World; how a generations-long subsistence crisis in France contributed to social disintegration and ultimately revolution; and how English efforts to improve farm productivity in the face of a deteriorating climate helped pave the way for the Industrial Revolution and hence for global warming. This is a fascinating, original book for anyone interested in history, climate, or the new subject of how they interact.