This book reports on efforts by geoscientists and climate modellers (KIHZ) to assess natural climate variability during the Holocene. Part 1 is an overview of the climate system and its dynamics. Part 2 describes the efforts of the KIHZ members to reconstruct past climate by using proxy data derived from ice cores, lake sediments, tree rings and corals, statistical analyses and climate models.

An Introduction to the KIHZ Project The description of the climate system and the quantification of its natural variability and dynamics is essential to assess an ongoing anthropogenic cli mate change and to validate climate and biogeochemical models to allow for reliable projections into the future. Because the spatio-temporal coverage of direct meteorological observations is rather limited, high-resolution and ab solutely dated climate archives represent the only key to a quantification of seasonal to millenial climate variations in the past. Furthermore, climate mod els provide insights...