Quaternary Environmental Change in the Tropics.

Intro -- Title page -- Copyright page -- List of contributors -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- I: Global contexts -- CHAPTER 1 Introduction -- 1.1 Why the tropics matter -- 1.2 Development of ideas -- 1.3 Establishment of the tropical climate system -- 1.4 Drivers of tropical environmental change -- 1.5 The tropics as drivers of change -- 1.6 Extra-tropical forcing -- 1.7 Organisation of the volume -- Acknowledgements -- CHAPTER 2 Contemporary climate and circulation of the tropics -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Diurnal and local processes -- 2.3 Planetary context -- 2.4 Regional circulation systems -- 2.5 Climatic variability -- 2.6 Concluding remarks -- II: Regional environmental change -- CHAPTER 3 Tropical oceans -- 3.1 Tropical oceans in the global climate system -- 3.2 Reconstructing past ocean conditions -- 3.3 Tropical oceans throughout the Quaternary -- 3.4 The past 20 000 years -- 3.5 Outlook -- CHAPTER 4 Africa -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Potential climate forcing factors -- 4.3 Mediterranean North Africa -- 4.4 The Sahara and the Sahel -- 4.5 Equatorial Africa -- 4.6 Southern Africa -- 4.7 Synthesis -- 4.8 Directions for future research -- CHAPTER 5 India, Arabia and adjacent regions -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Quaternary of India and Tibet -- 5.3 Quaternary of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal -- 5.4 Quaternary of Arabia and the Middle East -- 5.5 Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- CHAPTER 6 China and Southeast Asia -- 6.1 The South and Southeast Asian region as a component of the Earth system -- 6.2 Setting the stage for the Quaternary: environmental context and controls -- 6.3 Regional syntheses -- 6.4 The Asian tropics during the Quaternary: driver of planetary change? -- CHAPTER 7 Australia and the southwest Pacific -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 Northeastern Australia -- 7.3 Northern Australia -- 7.4 Northwestern Australia.

7.5 Western Australia -- 7.6 Central Australia -- 7.7 Southwest Pacific Islands -- 7.8 General discussion and conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- CHAPTER 8 Latin America and the Caribbean -- 8.1 Introduction -- 8.2 Precursor to the Quaternary -- 8.3 Climate mechanisms -- 8.4 Long term climate forcings and cycles -- 8.5 Records of climate change -- 8.6 Other climate forcings -- 8.7 El Ni�no records -- 8.8 Climate and societies -- 8.9 Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- III: Global syntheses -- CHAPTER 9 Modelling of tropical environments during the Quaternary -- 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Tropical climate in the Holocene: response to orbital forcing -- 9.3 Tropical climate at the LGM: the roles of GHGs and ice sheet forcing -- 9.4 Tropical climate variability -- 9.5 Summary and further discussion -- CHAPTER 10 Historical environmental change in the tropics -- 10.1 Introduction -- 10.2 Climate change and society in the tropics in the last 1000 years -- 10.3 Exploring anthropogenic impacts in the tropics -- 10.4 Recent and future environmental changes in the 'vulnerable' tropics -- CHAPTER 11 Past environmental changes, future environmental challenges -- 11.1 Patterns of tropical environmental change -- 11.2 Forcings -- 11.3 Future change in the tropics -- 11.4 The tropics as drivers of change -- 11.5 Conclusions -- Index.

The global climate changes that led to the expansion and contraction of high latitude ice sheets during the Quaternary period were associated with equally dramatic changes in tropical environments. These included shifts in vegetation zones, changes in the hydrology and ecology of lakes and rivers, and fluctuations in the size of mountain glaciers and sandy deserts. Until recently it was thought that such changes were triggered by fluctuations in the distribution of polar ice cover. Now there is increasing recognition that the tropics themselves have acted as drivers of global climate change over a range of timescales. The aim of Quaternary Environmental Change in the Tropics is to provide a synthesis of the changes that occurred in tropical terrestrial and marine systems during the Pleistocene and Holocene, complementing data-derived reconstructions with output from state-of-the-art climate models. It is targeted at final-year undergraduate students and research specialists, but will provide an introduction to tropical Quaternary research for a variety of other readers.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2019. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.