Review by Choice Review
With the present concern about global warming and climate change, it is also necessary to look back at past climatic evidence to properly judge the present global environment. In most countries, climatic data is limited to the past 50-100 years, really too short a time to provide a sense of natural climate variability on decade and century time-scales. This volume is a timely, important contribution, the result of a 1988 meeting of the European Geophysical Society. The book's 33 chapters are arranged in 5 sections: A: Documentary evidence (e.g., chapters on Hudson Bay, Iceland, Italy, and China); B: Dendroclimatic evidence (e.g., western US, northwest Africa, Australasia); C: Ice core evidence (e.g., Yukon Territories, Peru, China, and Antarctica); D: Forcing factors (solar activity, volcanic events, and El Ni~no); and E: Summary. The consolidated subject index includes geographic localities. A computer diskette of the book's data can be obtained from NOAA. A valuable book, especially at graduate and professional levels, but of interest to anyone concerned with the natural variability of the earth's climate. J. T. Andrews; University of Colorado
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
