Peter D. Clift – författare

The Asian monsoon and associated river systems supply the water that sustains a large portion of humanity, and has enabled Asia to become home to some of the oldest and most productive farming systems on Earth. This book uses climate data and environmental models to provide a detailed review of variations in the Asian monsoon since the mid-Holocene, and its impacts on farming systems and human settlement. Future changes to the monsoon due to anthropogenically-driven global warming are also discussed. Faced with greater rainfall and more cyclones in South Asia, as well as drying in North China and regional rising sea levels, understanding how humans have developed resilient strategies in the past to climate variations is critical. Containing important implications for the large populations and booming economies in the Indo-Pacific region, this book is an important resource for researchers and graduate students studying the climate, environmental history, agronomy and archaeology of Asia.

The Asian monsoon is one of the most dramatic climatic phenomena on Earth, with far-reaching environmental and societal effects. Almost two thirds of humanity lives within regions influenced by the monsoon. With the emerging Asian economies, the importance of the region to the global economy has never been more marked. The Asian Monsoon describes the evolution of the monsoon, and proposes a connection between the tectonic evolution of the solid Earth and monsoon intensity. The authors explain how the monsoon has been linked to orbital processes and thus to other parts of the global climate system, especially glaciation. Finally, they summarize how monsoon evolution since the last Ice Age has impacted human societies, as well as commenting on the potential impact of future climate change. This book presents a multi-disciplinary overview of the monsoon for advanced students and researchers in atmospheric science, climatology, oceanography, geophysics, and geomorphology.

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 198.Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations brings together a collection of studies on the history of complex interrelationships between humans and their environment by integrating Earth science with archeology and anthropology. At a time when climate change, overpopulation, and scarcity of resources are increasingly affecting our ways of life, the lessons of the past provide multiple reference frames that are valuable for informing our future decisions and action plans. Volume highlights include discussions of multiple connotations of the Anthropocene, landscapes as a link between climate and humans, synoptic approaches to explore large-scale cultural patterns, regional studies for contextualizing cultural complexity, and environmental determinism and social theory. Straddling the fields of Earth sciences, anthropology, and archaeology and presenting research from across several continents, Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations will appeal to a wide readership among scientists, scholars, and the public at large.