Natural Climate Variability and Global Warming: A Holocene Perspective

Whilst there is now overwhelming evidence that greenhouse-gas pollution is becoming the dominant process responsible for global warming, it is also clear that the climate system varies quite naturally on different time-scales. Predicting the course of future climate change consequently requires an understanding of the natural variability of the climate system as well as the effects of human-induced change. This book is concerned with our current understanding of natural climate change, its variability on decadal to centennial time-scales, the extent to which climate models of different kinds simulate past variability, and the role of past climate variability in explaining changes to natural ecosystems and to human society over the later part of the Holocene. The book highlights the need to improve not only our understanding of the physical system through time but also to improve our knowledge of how people may have influenced the climate system in the past and have been influenced by it, both directly and indirectly.

This ground-breaking text addresses predictable modification in the climate system in the context of global warming. Ideal for researchers and advanced students, it explores current thinking on natural climate change.

• Addresses the natural variability of the climate system in the context of global warming
• Contributes substantially to the ongoing discussion on global warming
• Integrates state of the art research and brings together modeling and data communities in a balanced way
• Considers questions of climate change on different time-scales

"Natural Climate Variability and Global Warming is clearly an important book, well-focused and distinctive, with fundamental things to say about Holocene science and its interface with the practical problem of global warming. It is an authoritative, up-to-date summary and synthesis of current knowledge in this area and is attractively produced with clear, colour illustrations throughout. It is a 'must' for all university libraries and our private book collections."
The Holocene, 2009

Rick Battarbee is Professor of Environmental Change and Director of the Environmental Change Research Centre at UCL. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and was the Chair of the European Science Foundation program “HOLIVAR.”

Heather Binney is a Research Fellow in the Environmental Change Research Centre, UCL. She is a palynologist with a special interest in pollen-vegetation relationships.