ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the causal factors behind the climatic changes that are manifest in the proxy records of the last 130 ka. The detailed record of the last 130 ka provides a useful template for the interpretation of environmental changes during earlier interglacial-glacial cycles. The chapter examines the evidence for environmental change in the circum-Atlantic region during the last cold stage, focusing on data from marine, terrestrial, glacial and ice-core records. Marine and ice-core data from the last interglacial generally support the climatic interpretations based on terrestrial evidence. Marine micropalaeontological evidence obtained during the 1970s showed how major changes had occurred in the position of the North Atlantic Polar Front during the course of the last glacial-interglacial transition. The chapter examines the development of Global Circulation Models (GCMs) in the context of climatic change at the end of the last cold stage and during the early part of the present Interglacial.
