Spectrum of climatic variations and their causal mechanisms

Surveys the history of the Earth's climate and deals with facts, techniques, and causes. A review of climatic history since the origin of the Earth demonstrates the changes and variability of our climate along different scales. These variations can probably be fully understood only when taking into account both external forcing and non-linear interactions between the components of the climatic system: atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. At least, as far as boundary conditions and forcing are concerned for the 10/sup 8/ to 10/sup 9/ yr time scale, atmospheric composition, solar evolution, and tectonism have be be considered, while variations of the Earth's orbital elements, and subsequently of the insolation, best explain the glacial-interglacial occurrences during the Quaternary Period. For shorter time scales, volcanic dust, solar activity, sea surface temperatures, and atmosphere-ocean autovariations have to be taken into account.Anglai