Description

Comprehensive, up-to-date account of polar climate change over the last one million years for researchers and advanced students in polar science. This book presents a thorough and highly cross-disciplinary review of how the polar climates have changed over the last million years and sets recent changes within a long term perspective. It will be invaluable for researchers and advanced students in polar science, climatology, global change, meteorology, oceanography and glaciology. This book presents a thorough and highly cross-disciplinary review of how the polar climates have changed over the last million years and sets recent changes within a long term perspective. It will be invaluable for researchers and advanced students in polar science, climatology, global change, meteorology, oceanography and glaciology. The polar regions have experienced some remarkable environmental changes in recent decades, such as the Antarctic ozone hole, the loss of large amounts of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean and major warming on the Antarctic Peninsula. The polar regions are also predicted to warm more than any other region on Earth over the next century if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. Yet trying to separate natural climate variability from anthropogenic factors still presents many problems. This book presents a thorough review of how the polar climates have changed over the last million years and sets recent changes within a long term perspective. The approach taken is highly cross-disciplinary and the close links between the atmosphere, ocean and ice at high latitudes are stressed. The volume will be invaluable for researchers and advanced students in polar science, climatology, global change, meteorology, oceanography and glaciology. Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Polar climate data and models; 3. The high latitude climates and mechanisms of change; 4. The last million years; 5. The Holocene; 6. The instrumental period; 7. Predictions for the next 100 years; 8. Summary and future research needs; References; Index. 'Both authors have extensive experience of the Antarctic regions from the course of their work for the British Antarctic Survey, and this experience and knowledge is clearly present in the book.' IEA Greenhouse Gas Programme