History of climate

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 164. Chapters: Little Ice Age, Snowball Earth, Younger Dryas, Permian-Triassic extinction event, Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, Maunder Minimum, Climate change, Paleoclimatology, Year Without a Summer, Medieval Warm Period, Global warming, Retreat of glaciers since 1850, Hockey stick controversy, Climate of Mars, Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Instrumental temperature record, Milankovitch cycles, Last glacial period, Quaternary glaciation, K-T boundary, History of climate change science, Heinrich event, Temperature record of the past 1000 years, Extreme weather events of 535-536, Eemian, Holocene climatic optimum, Faint young Sun paradox, 8.2 kiloyear event, Ordovician-Silurian extinction event, 4.2 kiloyear event, Timeline of glaciation, Soon and Baliunas controversy, Sahara pump theory, Geologic temperature record, Last Glacial Maximum, Great Oxygenation Event, Keeling Curve, Historical climatology, Pliocene climate, Pre-Illinoian, Sangamonian, Neolithic Subpluvial, Marine Isotopic Stage 11, Kansan glaciation, Bond event, CLIWOC, Wolstonian Stage, 5.9 kiloyear event, Cromerian Stage, Piora Oscillation, Beestonian stage, Climate: Long range Investigation, Mapping, and Prediction, Spörer Minimum, Bull Lake glaciation, Bølling-Allerød, Bølling oscillation, Champlain Sea, Neoglaciation, Allerød oscillation, Medea Hypothesis, Tell Leilan, Antarctic Cold Reversal, Marine isotope stage, Eocene Thermal Maximum 2, Bramertonian Stage, Pastonian Stage, Older Peron, Thermal optimum, Mousterian Pluvial, Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, Pre-Pastonian Stage, Carbonate-silicate cycle, Holocene glacial retreat, Cyclostratigraphy, Stadial, Dalton Minimum, Abbassia Pluvial, Iron Age Cold Epoch, Cambrian-Ordovician extinction events, Middle Bronze Age Cold Epoch, Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, Huelmo/Mascardi Cold Reversal, Boreotropical flora. Excerpt: The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and in the longer term, the level of the oceans. Studied by glaciologists, the temporal coincidence of glacier retreat with the measured increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases is often cited as an evidentiary underpinning of global warming. Mid-latitude mountain ranges such as the Himalayas, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Cascade Range, and the southern Andes, as well as isolated tropical summits such as Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, are showing some of the largest proportionate glacial loss. The Little Ice Age was a period from about 1550 to 1850 when the world experienced relatively cooler temperatures compared to the present. Subsequently, until about 1940, glaciers around the world retreated as the climate warmed substantially. Glacial retreat slowed and even reversed temporarily, in many cases, between 1950 and 1980 as a slight global cooling occurred. Since 1980, a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and ubiquitous, so much so that some glaciers have disappeared altogether, and the existence of a great number of the remaining glaciers of the world is threatened. In locations such as the Andes of South America and Himalayas in Asia, the demise of glaciers in these regions will have potential impact on water supplies. The retreat of mountain glaciers, notably in western North America, Asia, the Alps, Indonesia and Africa, and tropical and sub...