This volume explores the climates, landscapes, ecosystems and hazards that comprise the Mediterranean world. It traces the development of the Mediterranean landscape over very long timescales and examines modern processes and key environmental issues in a wide range of settings. The Mediterranean is the only region on Earth where three continents meet and this interaction has produced a very distinctive Physical Geography. This book examines the landscapes and processes at the margins of these continents and the distinctive marine environment between them. Catastrophic earthquakes, explosive volcanic eruptions and devastating storms and floods are intimately bound up within the history and mythology of the Mediterranean world. This is a key region for the study of natural hazards because it offers unrivalled access to long records of hazard occurrence and impact through documentary, archaeological and geological archives. The Mediterranean is also a biodiversity hotspot; it has been a meeting place for plants, animals and humans from three continents throughout much of its history. The Quaternary records of these interactions are more varied and better preserved than in any other part of the world. These records have provided important new insights into the tempo of climate, landscape and ecosystem change in the Mediterranean region and beyond. The region is unique because of the very early and widespread impact of humans in landscape and ecosystem change - and the richness of the archaeological and geological archives that chronicle this impact. This book examines this history and these interactions and places current environmental issues in long term context. Contributors : Ramadan Husain Abu-Zied Harriet Allen Jacques Blondel Maria-Carmen Llasat James Casford Marc Castellnou Andrew Goudie Andrew Harding Angela Hayes Tom Holt Babette Hoogakker Philip Hughes Jos Lelieveld John Lewin Francisco Lloret Francisco Lopez-Bermudez Mark Macklin Jean Margat Anne Mather Frédéric Médail Christophe Morhange Clive Oppenheimer Jean Palutikof Gerassimos Papadopoulos Josep Piñol David Pyle Jane Reed Neil Roberts Eelco Rohling Iain Stewart Stathis Stiros John Thornes Chronis Tzedakis John Wainwright

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 126. Until a few decades ago, scientists generally believed that significant large-scale past global and regional climate changes occurred at a gradual pace within a time scale of many centuries or millennia. A secondary assumption followed: climate change was scarcely perceptible during a human lifetime. Recent paleoclimatic studies, however, have proven otherwise: that global climate can change extremely rapidly. In fact, there is good evidence that in the past at least regional mean annual temperatures changed by several degrees Celsius on a time scale of several centuries to several decades.

The Mediterranean region contains a diverse and interesting climate ranging from areas with permanent glaciers to areas of subtropical, semiarid regions. The region is potentially sensitive to climate change and its progress has environmental, social, and economic implications within and beyond the region. Produced by the Mediterranean Climate Variability and Predictability Research Networking Project, this book reviews the evolution of the Mediterranean climate over the past two millennia with projections further into the twenty-first century as well as examining in detail various aspects of the Mediterranean region's climate including evolution, atmospheric variables, and oceanic and land elements. Integrated with this, the book also considers the social and economic problems or vulnerabilities associated with the region. Written and reviewed by multiple researchers to ensure a high level of information presented clearly, Mediterranean Climate Variables will be an invaluable source of information for geologists, oceanographers, and anyone interested in learning more about the Mediterranean climate. - Written by leading experts in the field - Presents clear, compelling, and concise evidence - Includes the latest thinking in Mediterranean climate research

This is a detailed description of the history and chronology of global climate based on event-signal stratigraphy. The history of global climate is described for the last fifty million years with the description for the last one million years in detail. Climatostratigraphic sequences of twelve key regions are taken as a basis, eight of them situated in the USSR territories. Chronology of climatic events of the Pleistocene, Pliocene and Miocene is developed based on palaeomagnetic and radiometric data. The authors' version of its correlation with oxygene-isotope scales of deep-sea sediments is given. Theoretical problems of climatic stratigraphy and palaeoclimatology are discussed, in particular, the causes of climatic change. The Northern Hemisphere palaeoclimatic reconstructions are made for the Holocene, Eemian and Pliocene temperature optima, considered as possible palaeoanalogues of climate of the 21st Century. The book is intended primarily for a wide circle of scientific workers, palaeoclimatologists and palaeogeographers, but will also interest geologists, biologists, palaeomagnetologists and archaeologists.

The Early-Middle Pleistocene transition (around 1.2 to 0.5 Ma) marks a profound shift in Earth's climate state. Low-amplitude 41 ka climate cycles, dominating the earlier part of the Pleistocene, gave way progressively to a 100 ka rhythm of increased amplitude that characterizes our present glacial-interglacial world. This volume assesses the biotic and physical response to this transition both on land and in the oceans: indeed it examines the very nature of Quaternary climate change. Milankovitch theory, palaeoceanography using isotopes and microfossils, marine organic geochemistry, tephrochronology, the record of loess and soil deposition, terrestrial vegetational change, and the migration and evolution of hominins as well as other large and small mammals, are all considered. These themes combine to explore the very origins of our present biota.

The mountains of the Mediterranean world are now largely ice free, but many were repeatedly glaciated during the Quaternary ice age. This created spectacular glaciated landscapes with a rich array of glacial deposits and landforms. The glacial and glacio-fluvial records are often very well preserved and our understanding of the timing of Quaternary glaciation has very recently been transformed through the application of dating methods utilizing uranium-series and cosmogenic isotopes. Glacial records from the Mediterranean now boast some of the most robust chronologies for mountain glaciation anywhere in the world – they represent a unique archive of Quaternary environmental change of global significance. The southerly latitude and relatively small size of Mediterranean glaciers rendered them especially sensitive to Pleistocene and Holocene climate changes. This volume brings together the leading researchers and the latest research on Mediterranean glaciation. Several papers also explore glacier behaviour in the Holocene – including those glaciers of southernmost Europe at risk of disappearing this century.

This book, based on the proceedings of third symposium held on 17th August 1977 during the Xth INQUA Congress at Birmingham, UK, focuses on the influence the Antarctic glaciation had on world palaeoenvironments.