Past Climate Variability in South America and Surrounding Regions: From the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene (Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research, 14) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9048126711 ISBN 13: 9789048126712

Publisher: Springer, 2009

Synopsis

South America is a unique place where a number of past climate archives are ava- able from tropical to high latitude regions. It thus offers a unique opportunity to explore past climate variability along a latitudinal transect from the Equator to Polar regions and to study climate teleconnections. Most climate records from tropical and subtropical South America for the past 20,000 years have been interpreted as local responses to shift in the mean position and intensity of the InterTropical Conv- gence Zone due to tropical and extratropical forcings or to changes in the South American Summer Monsoon. Further South, the role of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds on global climate has been highly investigated with both paleodata and coupled climate models. However the regional response over South America during the last 20,000 years is much more variable from place to place than pre- ously thought. The factors that govern the spatial patterns of variability on millennial scale resolution are still to be understood. The question of past natural rates and ranges of climate conditions over South America is therefore of special relevance in this context since today millions of people live under climates where any changes in monsoon rainfall can lead to catastrophic consequences.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This book groups together overviews and original research papers dealing with South American climate variability from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. The contributions deal with tropical, temperate and high latitudes climate variability in South America and in surrounding regions (including Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and Antarctica). It offers results obtained from both natural climate archives and recent simulations from coupled climate models. The objective is to propose a state of the art about our knowledge of past climate variability in South America. Specifically, this book aims at presenting the whole available observations and at discussing climate mechanisms, specifically the low to high latitude teleconnections on that continent which spreads out from the equator to Patagonia. It is written by an expert group of climate change scientists, and presents an insight into dynamics of the past and provides climate modellers with work of reference for data-model comparison. The book is an advanced but very readable text essential for all students and scientists interested in global environmental change.

About this edition

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 9048126711
• ISBN 13: 9789048126712
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 435
• Editor: Vimeux Francoise, Sylvestre Florence, Khodri Myriam