"Global Climates Since the Last Glacial Maximum" is the result of a 15 year inter-institutional interdisciplinary research programme designed to summarize the geological, palaeoecological, and oceanographic evidence for environmental and climatic changes during the past 18,000 years, over most of the world's continents and oceans, and to compare the data with palaeoclimatic simulations based on models of the atmospheric general circulation at 3000-year intervals from 18,000 years ago to the present. These comparisons have led to the solution of a number of problems in late-Quaternary climatic history during continental deglaciation and subsequent time, especially concerning the effect of the continental ice sheets on the general atmospheric circulation and importance of global changes in seasonality of shifts in the geometry of the earth-sun orbital system. These two controls on climate resulted in a complex history manifested by the changing patterns of vegetation, shifts in the distribution of marine zooplankton, and changes in lake levels.
The contributors to "Global Climates Since the Last Glacial Maximum" skillfully apply the two independent approaches to paleoclimate reconstruction. Field data are used to evaluate the accuracy of model results, and the model simulations suggest the mechanisms and underlying causes for the observed climatic changes. Discrepancies in the two types of reconstruction can lead both to further research in the field and laboratory and to revision of the boundary conditions set for the model experiments. Both professionals and students interested in Quaternary environmental and climatic history should find this book useful, including those in the fields of geophysics, geochemistry, oceanography, biogeography, archaeology, and environmental sciences in general, as well as geology, ecology, and climatology.