Climate Change in Continental Isotopic Records (Geophysical Monograph)

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 78.

This volume is designed to provide paleoclimatologists with information on past climate from sources other than the deep sea. For climate modelers aware of the fact that current global climate models do not always accurately predict the temperatures of continental interiors, the analyses presented here may offer much needed constraints on their models. Because analysis of the oxygen and carbon isotopic composition of benthic and planktonic foraminifera has provided the basis for most of the work done on climatic variation, our interpretation has been biased by records from the marine environment and does not provide an adequate indication of the temperature of continental interiors. Our eventual aim is to stimulate geologists, geochemists, and others to collect data on continental isotopic indicators of climate (CIICs) throughout the world, perhaps concentrating on certain geological intervals. In fact, a global continental climate program, styled after an earlier program which studied climate in the marine realm (CLIMAP), has been proposed. With such data it may eventually be possible to construct paleo maps of surface temperature and/or the oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation during specific time periods. One suitable time period, for example, would be the Cretaceous. In this case further information may be gleaned on controversies such as whether the polar regions were in fact warm at this time or whether temperature gradients similar to today's were present.