ABSTRACT
As the probability of impending rapid climate change was realized, interest in Holocene climate dynamics quickened. Lessons could be taken from the past because the forcing functions governing climatic change are the same now as in the Pleistocene, e.g. variation in northern hemispheric insolation, the thermohaline circulation system, and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-like phenomena. Suggestions that the southern hemispheric tropics underwent major climatic change before the northern hemisphere has prompted speculation that the tropics may play a significant role in inducing high-latitude climate change (e.g. Harris and Mix, 1999). Consequently, in the past decade, tropical palaeoecology has moved beyond a simple characterization of glacial or interglacial climates to tackle more subtle questions about the timing, nature and extent of climate change, and how those changes are forced.
