Paleoclimate and Evolution, with Emphasis on Human Origins
Paleoclimate and Evolution, with Emphasis on Human Origins

Author: Elisabeth S. Vrba

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 567

ISBN-13: 0300063482

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Addressing the relationship between climatic and biotic evolution, this work focuses on how climatic change during the last 15 million years - especially the last three million - has affected human evolution and other evolutionary events.

Tropical Fire Ecology
Tropical Fire Ecology

Author: Mark Cochrane

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-04-11

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 3540773819

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The tropics are home to most of the world’s biodiversity and are currently the frontier for human settlement. Tropical ecosystems are being converted to agricultural and other land uses at unprecedented rates. Land conversion and maintenance almost always rely on fire and, because of this, fire is now more prevalent in the tropics than anywhere else on Earth. Despite pervasive fire, human settlement and threatened biodiversity, there is little comprehensive information available on fire and its effects in tropical ecosystems. Tropical deforestation, especially in rainforests, has been widely documented for many years. Forests are cut down and allowed to dry before being burned to remove biomass and release nutrients to grow crops. However, fires do not always stop at the borders of cleared forests. Tremendously damaging fires are increasingly spreading into forests that were never evolutionarily prepared for wild fires. The largest fires on the planet in recent decades have occurred in tropical forests and burned millions of hectares in several countries. The numerous ecosystems of the tropics have differing levels of fire resistance, resilience or dependence. At present, there is little appreciation of the seriousness of the wild fire situation in tropical rainforests but there is even less understanding of the role that fire plays in the ecology of many fire adapted tropical ecosystems, such as savannas, grasslands and other forest types.

Tropical Forests in Transition
Tropical Forests in Transition

Author: J. Goldammer

Publisher: Birkhäuser

Published: 2013-03-08

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 3034872569

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In evolutionary time scales natural disturbances have affected the vegetation on Earth. During the Quaternary the forest biomes of the tropics were subjected to manifold disturbances. Climate changes and climate oscillations were associated with changing precipitation and drought regimes, flooding, siltation, landslides, etc. The prehistorical forest was also influenced by the effects of large wildlife populations. Large-scale catastrophies in the forest biomes were mainly caused by abiotic environmental alterations, the small-scale disturbances were and still are related to both biotic and abiotic processes. Both the large-and the small-scale disturbances have played a significant role in shaping distribution, dynamics, structure and composition of the paleoforest. After the expansion of hominids and early humans, and later, by modern humans, the anthropogenic influences on the tropical forest began to overlap natural disturbances. Today's anthropogenic impacts on the tropical forests differ qualitatively and quanitatively from the natural disturbances. The speed of tropical deforestation and savannization is dramatically increasing. The physical and chemical impacts of forest conversion and biomass burning add to other anthropogenic influences on the atmosphere and climate. The expected anthropogenic climate change will also have considerable impacts on the tropical flora and fauna. The book on "Tropical Forests in Transition" synthesizes information on changing environmental conditions and human impacts on the tropical forest by looking back to the paleoecology, analyzing the impact of modern human populations and modeling the future of the tropical forest in a changing environment. The aim of the book is to strengthen multidisciplinary thinking in disturbance ecology.

Water, Environment and Society in Times of Climatic Change
Water, Environment and Society in Times of Climatic Change

Author: Arie S. Issar

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 9401736596

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Since the greenhouse effect emerged as a predictable threat, necessitating the evalu ation of its future impact on the environment in the various parts of the globe, interest in the climate changes during the Holocene has gained momentum. The background can be summarized by the sentence: The past is a key to the future. As a matter of fact, this sentence is in the opposite direction, on the dimension of time, to the principle adopted by the founders of the science of geology. They proposed that geological processes in the present should be used as a key for understanding the past. Another reason for the interest in the history of the climate of the Holocene can be described as the renaissance of a modified deterministic approach to the inter relation between physical and human geography. This relates in the first place to the fact that various investigations, especially as carried out by Hubert Lamb, showed that the sequence of climate changes previously suggested by Blytt and Sernander for Europe and adopted by most Holocene climatologists was far too general, and that there were more climate changes during recent history than previously taken account of. In the second place it was found out that these changes had had an impact on the history of human communities. Thus, one can conclude that once the taboo on geographical determinism (i. e.

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Tropical Forest Ecosystems
Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Tropical Forest Ecosystems

Author: Adam Markham

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9401727309

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Climate change represents one of the most alarming long-term threats to ecosystems the world over. This new collection of papers provides, for the first time, an overview of the potentially serious impact that climate change may have on tropical forests. The authors, a multi-disciplinary group of leading experts in climatology, forestry, ecology and conservation biology, present a state-of-knowledge snapshot of how tropical forests are likely to react to the changes being wrought on our planet's atmosphere and climate. Tropical forests represent extraordinary harbours for biological diversity, and yet as deforestation and degradation continue apace, they are under greater pressure from human impacts than ever before. Climate change adds yet another threat to these valuable ecosystems, and this volume demonstrates just how significant a problem this may really be. The authors identify certain types of forest, including tropical montane cloud forest that may be particularly vulnerable. They also show the strong likelihood of global warming aggravating problems in already fragmented forest areas.

Climate Change
Climate Change

Author: Frank Chambers

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 9780415276580

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This collection of papers is introduced by an overview of research into climate change. Each volume contains an introductory commentary presenting the major strengths and achievements of the papers, their weaknesses and limitations and points to follow-up work.

Orbital Forcing and Cyclic Sequences
Orbital Forcing and Cyclic Sequences

Author: P. L. DeBoer

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-04-08

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 1444304046

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Classically orbital cycles have been recognized in pelagic and lacustrine sequences characterized by quiet sedimentation, not disturbed by tectonics. Hoiwever, there is now increasing recognition that orbital cycles do influence climate and oceanography in general terms. There is also increasing acceptance of the possibility at least that the effect should be felt over large parts of the Earth's surface and that orbital cycles may well leave signs in other sedimentary environments that are commonly considered to be dominated by tectonics and eustasy. Containing thirty-one papers from a symposium held at the International Sedimentological Congress in Nottingham in 1990, this volume spans a range of topics from the astronomical theory behind orbital forcing, to field studies dealing with a broad range of sedimentary environments, and to modelling and simulation. State-of-the-art research papers. International expert authorship. The latest research in the highly topical subject of orbital forcing.