Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Background to the Science of Environmental Change - John A. Matthews, Patrick J. Bartlein, Keith R. Briffa, Alastair G. Dawson, Anne De Vernal, Tim Denham, Sherilyn C. Fritz and Frank Oldfield
PART ONE: APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
Philosophical and Methodological Perspectives on the Science of Environmental Change - Stephan Harrison
Direct Observation and Monitoring of Climate and Related Environmental Change - Keith D. Alverson
Reconstructing and Inferring Past Environmental Change - Frank M. Chambers
Dating Environmental Change and Reconstructing Chronologies - Mike J.C. Walker
Modelling Environmental Change and Developing Future Projections - Reto Knutti
Approaches to Understanding Long-Term Human-Environment Interaction - John A. Dearing
Past, Present and Future
PART TWO: EVIDENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND THE GEO-ECOLOGICAL RESPONSE
Environmental Change in the Geological Record - Jane E. Francis, Alan M. Haywood, Daniel Hill, Paul Marwick and Claire Mcdonald
Evidence of Environmental Change from the Coastal and Marine Realm - Ian D. Goodwin and William R. Howard
Evidence of Environmental Change from the Cryosphere - Shawn Marshall
Evidence of Environmental Change from Terrestrial Palaeohydrology - Wim Hoek
Evidence of Environmental Change from Terrestrial and Freshwater Palaeoecology - Alison J. Smith
Evidence of Environmental Change from Aeolian and Hillslope Sediments and Other Terrestrial Sources - Joseph A. Mason
Environmental Change and Archaeological Evidence - Tim Denham
Evidence of Environmental Change from Annually-Resolved Proxies With Particular Reference to Dendroclimatology and the Last Millennium - Eugene R. Wahl and David Frank
Early-Instrumental and Documentary Evidence of Environmental Change - Cary J. Mock
PART THREE: CAUSES, MECHANISMS AND DYNAMICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
Plate Tectonics, Continental Drift, Vulcanism and Mountain Building - Paul Bishop
Extraterrestrial Causes of Environmental Catastrophes - Elisabetta Pierazzo and H. Jay Melosh
Astronomical Theory and Orbital Forcing - André Berger
Millennial-Scale Climatic Events during the Last Glacial Episode - Siwan M. Davies and Anders Svensson
Solar and Volcanic Forcing of Decadal- to Millennial-Scale Climatic Variations - Raimund Muscheler and Eric Fischer
Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions on Interannual to Decadal Timescales - Mathias Vuille and René D. Garreaud
Responses of Biogeochemical Cycles in the Sea to Environmental Change - Thomas F. Pedersen and Rainer Zahn
Anthropogenic Drivers of Environmental Change - Jemma L. Gornall, andrew J. Wiltshire and Richard A. Betts
PART FOUR: KEY ISSUES OF HUMAN-INDUCED ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES AND THEIR IMPACTS
Monitoring of Global Land-Cover - Sietse O. Los and Jamie Williams
Human Impacts on Terrestrial Biota and Ecosystems - Craig Miller and Iain Gordon
Human Impacts on Lacustrine Ecosystems - Richard W. Battarbee, Helen Bennion, Peter Gell and Neil Rose
Human Impacts on Coastal and Marine Geo-Ecosystems - Ben Daley
Human Impacts on the Atmosphere - Kevin J. Noone
PART FIVE: PATTERNS, PROCESSES AND IMPACTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AT THE REGIONAL SCALE
Environmental Change in the Humid Tropics and Monsoonal Regions - Mark Bush and Will D. Gosling
Environmental Change in the Arid and Semi-Arid Regions - Yang Xiaoping
Environmental Change in the Mediterranean Region - Mira Bar-Matthews
Environmental Change in the Temperate Forested Regions - Matt Mcglone, Jamie Wood and Patrick J. Bartlein
Environmental Change in the Temperate Grasslands and Steppe - Pavel E. Tarasov, John W. Williams, Jed O. Kaplan, Hermann Österle, Tatiana V. Kuznetsova and Mayke Wagner
Environmental Change in the Arctic and Antarctic - Marianne S.V. Douglas
Environmental Change in Mountain Regions - Martin Beniston
Environmental Change in Coastal Areas and Islands - Patrick Nunn
PART SIX: RESPONSES OF PEOPLE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIETY
Testing the Role of Climate Change in Human Evolution - S.P.E. Blockley, I. Candy and S.M. Blockley
The Origins and Spread of Early Agriculture and Domestication - Deborah Pearsall and Peter W. Stahl
Environmental and Cultural Considerations
Complexity, Causality and Collapse - Georgina Endfield
Social Discontinuity in History and Prehistory
Vulnerability and Resilience of Contemporary Societies to Environmental Change - Donald R. Nelson
Disease, Human and Animal Health, and Environmental Change - Matthew Baylis and Andrew P. Morse
Policy and Management Options for the Mitigation of Environmental Change - Katie Moon and Chris Cocklin
Socio-Economic Adaptation to Environmental Change - Chris J. Barrow
Towards Sustainable Development

About the Author

John A. Matthews is Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography at Swansea University, Wales.