Paleoclimate, Global Change, and the Future

A global paleoclimate observing system.

Introduction. Global change and biodiversity: future challenges.

On the importance of paleoclimate modelling for improving predictions of future climate change

We use an ensemble of runs from the MIROC3.2 AGCM with slab-ocean to explore the extent to which midHolocene simulations are relevant to predictions of future climate change. The results are compared with similar analyses for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and pre-industrial control climate. We suggest that the paleoclimate epochs can provide some independent validation of the models that is al...

Understanding global climate change: paleoclimate perspective from the world's highest mountains.

Glaciers are among the world's best recorders of, and first responders to, natural and anthropogenic climate change and provide a time perspective for current climatic and environmental variations. Over the last 50 years such records have been recovered from the polar regions as well as low-latitude, high-elevation ice fields. Analyses of these ice cores and of the glaciers from which they have...

Future battlegrounds for conservation under global change.

Global biodiversity is under significant threat from the combined effects of human-induced climate and land-use change. Covering 12% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, protected areas are crucial for conserving biodiversity and supporting ecological processes beneficial to human well-being, but their selection and design are usually uninformed about future global change. Here, we quantify the ...