Abrupt climate change: Mechanisms, patterns, and impacts

Abstract

In the span of only a few decades, the global temperature can soar by more than a dozen degrees Celsius, a feat that 20 years ago was considered improbable, if not impossible. But recent research in the nascent field of rapid climate change has upended the dominant views of decades past. Focusing primarily on events during and after the most recent glaciation, from 80,000 years ago, the AGU monograph Abrupt Climate Change: Mechanisms, Patterns, and Impacts, edited by Harunur Rashid, Leonid Polyak, and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, explores the transient climate transitions that were only recently uncovered in climate proxies around the world. In this interview, Eos talks to Harunur Rashid about piecing together ancient climes, the effect of abrupt change on historical civilizations, and why younger researchers may be more worried about modern warming than their teachers. © 2012. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.