Introductory Comments

Palaeoclimatic research is well-established throughout the world.  Each continent has its researchers who are based throughout the world in several research establishments, universities and societies.

It is a very interesting field and provides significant understandings of climate change the world over.

North African palaeoclimatic research, like research elsewhere is highly specialised with contributions from a number of interdisciplinary areas, including Earth Science, Geomorphology, landscape geography and hydrography to name one or two.

There are a number of different ‘kinds’ of research that can be done to study the Saharan climate regimes under the general heading of Quaternary Research, which covers significant Geological time in human terms. In geological terms it is but a mere blink of an eye.

My interest in Saharan climate regimes spans the time line from about 15,000 bc to the beginning of the Roman era.

It was a time of substantial climatic change in the Northern Hemisphere, influenced as it was by both localised and more regional effects, and effects on a more global scale.

Elements of Quaternary Research are known under a number of guises, two of them, the Holocene, or the Younger Dryas will be used interchangeably, basically they are petty much the same thing but do hold slightly different meanings to specialists in the field.

Data for the study of palaeaoclimatic research is obtained principally from computer-generated data models of past (& future) climates, geological climate maximums and minimums, from Ice cores from both the Arctic and the Antartic, the Greenland Ice Fields and from the rates, kinds and volumes of sediment build-up at for instance, at Deltas, Weather patterns, the mountain-building processes that affect monsoonal weather patterns, large water body movements such as the Gulf Stream, convection currents (heating and cooling of our seas) etc., volcanic activities, atmospheric gases build-up, cosmological processes and the effect of man on his environment.

Palaeoclimatic studies are fundamental to forming and developing our knowledge-base, providing us with a way through the confusing paradox of climate change data and ‘green’ bandwagon ideologies.

For a recommended European university studying climatic change in Africa, visit the University of Koeln website ACACIA. These pages at the university’s website (in German and English) provide comprehensive information on current research projects studying climate change.

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