Results of literature survey of knowledge on mountain glaciers in six regions of southern hemisphere: Andes of South America (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina), New Guinea, East Africa, Subantarctic Islands, New Zealand, and Antarctica. Includes discussions on distribution, extent, characteristics, and behavior of mountain glaciers as well as map and list of references for each regional discussion.

The study is a literature survey of knowledge on mountain glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere is divided into the following regional categories with respect to glaciers: The Andes of South America, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, New Guinea, East Africa, Sub- Antarctic Islands, New Zealand, and Antarctica. Included are discussions on the distribution, extent, characteristics, and behavior of mountain glaciers and an extensive list of references for each regional discussion. A history of observations and current research programs is incorporated in the text. Nineteen new maps have been prepared on the mountain glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Southern Andes, stretching from the subtropics to the subantarctic, are ideally located for palaeoenvironmental research. Over the broad and continuous latitudinal extent of the cordillera (-24˚), vegetation is adjusted to climatic gradients and atmospheric circulation patterns.Opposed to the prevailing Southern Westerlies, the Southern Andes are positioned to receive the brunt of the winds, while biota are set to record the shifting of incoming storm systems over time. Sequential, latitudinally-placed, sedimentary deposits containing microfossils and macroremains, as archives of past vegetation and climate, make possible the detection of equatorward and poleward displacement of plant communities and, as a consequence, changes in climatic controls. No terrestrial setting in the Southern Hemisphere is so unique for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction during and since the last ice age. Twenty radiocarbon-dated fossil pollen and spore records chosen to place emphasis on the last ice age include high-resolution, submillennial data sets that also cover the Holocene, thus providing contrast between present interglacial and past glacial ages. From a refined data base, the records constitute the foundation for interpreting factors responsible for vegetation change over >50,000 14C years, glacial-interglacial migration and refugial patterns for a diversity of taxa, and the extent of intrahemispheric and polar hemispheric synchroneity versus asynchroneity.

This volume is a compilation of papers of the final meeting of the IGCP Project 201, Quaternary of South America. The papers deal with a range of topics from quaternary vertebrate palaeontology in Argentina to biostratigraphy and chronological scale of uppermost Cenozoic in the Pampean area.

Since The Little Ice Age was published in 1988, interest in climatic history has grown rapidly and research in the area has flourished. A vast amount of new data has become available from sources such as ice cores, speleothems and tree rings. The picture that we have of past climates and glacier oscillations has extended further into the past and has become more detailed. However, the knowledge of climate change on the decennial and centennial timescale, to which glacier history can contribute, is scarce and is in demand when attempting to predict future change, especially with regard to global warming. New chapters and material have been included throughout the book, which tend to confirm and elaborate on the conclusions of the first edition. The glacial evidence has been presented in the context of the oceanographic and icecap studies that have provided such exciting results. Little Ice Ages is structured in three parts: Part 1 details the evidence for glacier variations in the last thousand years in different parts of the world and the associated climatic fluctuations. Part 2 brings together the evidence for the timing of glacier variations in the course of the Holocene. Part 3 views the Holocene record in a longer time context, especially as it appears in ice cores, and goes on to consider the likely causes of climatic variability on a Little Ice Age timescale and some of its physical, biological and human consequences. It becomes apparent in Little Ice Ages that the glacier record provides a valuable indication of the nature of climatic fluctuations on the land areas of the globe. The record points to periods of cooling which were more numerous and less continuous than was believed to be the case twenty years ago. There appears to be no single explanation for the variability. Volcanism, solar variability and ocean currents have all played their parts and prediction continues to present many problems. Some authorities have thrown doubt on the existence of the Little Ice Age, but Little Ice Age makes the case for a climatic sequence that can usefully be called the Little Ice Age and which had predecessors occurring at intervals of several centuries throughout much of the last 10,000 years.