ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors presents lake-level evidence for climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere tropics (0–23.5°N) for the period since the last glacial maximum c. 18 000 years BP. They analyse variations in the distribution and relative extent of lakes in Africa and western Eurasia (20°W–60°E), for which there are abundant data. The authors compare these results with the more limited amount of evidence for moisture variations in Central America, to determine whether the pattern of changes there was comparable. They suggest some implications of our findings for the geomorphic evolution of the tropics and explain how late Quaternary climates in low latitudes are published elsewhere. The authors reconstruct past variations in net water balance using a simpler and more direct approach which does not require the relative contributions of precipitation, evaporation and runoff to be evaluated.
