455Journal of Paleolimnology 23: 455–456, 2000.

Book review

Paleoclimatology – Reconstructing Climates of theQuaternary. R.S.Bradley. 2nd edition. 1999. 613 pp.Academic Press, San Diego, ISBN 0-12-124010-X.Price: $69.95 US.

As we move into the 21st century, there are more thana few pressures at work to divide the domains ofUniversity research and teaching. In an era of citationindices and fierce competition for grant resources, itcan be increasingly difficult to persuade researchleaders of the value – at least to them – of distillingtheir knowledge into book form for a primarily studentaudience. Ray Bradley is one leading authority whohas undertaken such a distillation, in his case onQuaternary climatic change, and his pioneering book‘Paleoclimatology’ has been much thumbed by studentsand researchers alike since its original publication in1985. The appearance of a revised and expandedsecond edition will therefore be much welcomed.Furthermore, its publication serves to reminds us of thegreat benefits to be gained when the worlds of researchand teaching collide. The fact that the book has beenwritten by a leading researcher rather than a professionalsynthesiser is evident not only in the quality of theargument presented and the depth of understanding,but also in the strict application of criteria of materialfor inclusion. Rather than being encyclopaedic, theauthor has focused his attention only on selected, aboveall quantifiable indicators of past climates. The quidpro quo for excluding some material discussed in othertexts on the Quaternary, such as fluvial sediments orarchaeological evidence, is that he is able to includeother material which is needed to understand presentand past climate dynamics, such as the global radiationbalance and historical weather observations.

The book’s structure follows the same essentialformat as in the original edition, but includes two new

chapters and a hugely expanded and bang-up-to-date82 page bibliography. Following two introductorychapters on climate and its reconstruction, the bookmoves to consider dating methods in chapters 3 and 4;the first of them dealing with radio-isotopic methodsand the second with other techniques, such as paleo-magnetism. The former, in particular, has been thoroughlyrevised to take account of new developments such asAMS 14C and optical dating. The rapid pace of researchdevelopments can make writing a new book editionsomething of a nightmare, not only because of the needto keep abreast of new developments – for whichBradley is admirably placed – but also because thesecan sometimes have more fundamental implicationsfor how material is best organised and presented. A casein point is the problem of radiocarbon calibration,which now extends, with varying degrees of precision,back to and beyond the Last Glacial Maximum. Theneed for, and potential means of, calibrating 14C datesis set out in detail in chapter 3, but the author has optedagainst harmonising the various timescales used in thebook to take account of the different dating methodsinvolved. While understandable, the lack of systematicharmonisation does lead to some potential confusion.In some parts of the book it is made clear whether 14Cor calibrated ages are being referred to, but in othersthis is not spelled out, for example on lake-levelfluctuations (pp.318 ff.) and pollen mapping (pp.373ff.). A standardised timescale for all paleoclimate proxy-data is not likely to be achieved quickly or easily, onesuspects . . .

Following on from the sections on dating methods,Chapter 5 offers an admirable new 65 page summaryof research on the key paleoclimatic records from polarand high altitude ice cores, most of which has beenundertaken since the first edition of the book waspublished. In this, Bradley highlights not only theimpressive successes of ice-core research, but also some

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of the current uncertainties, such as the synchroneity– or otherwise – of climate changes between the twopolar regions. The next chapter, which covers marinesequences, also includes substantial new material,particularly on paleotemperature records from alkenonesand corals.

Following this, chapters 7 and 8 deal respectivelywith geological and biological evidence from non-marine environments. It is in this part of the book whereone would look for discussion of how paleolimnologycan inform studies of past climate change. Sadly,however, the pickings are meagre, with the ‘albeit brief’new section on lake sediments amounting to only twoprinted pages. There is much more that could have beenadded here, for example, on how paleosalinityfluctuations have extended the record of drought andflood in dryland regions such as the American Mid-West, on diatoms and paleotemperatures in arctic andalpine environments, or on abrupt Holocene aridevents reflected in major African lake regressions. Theiromission is certainly not due to ignorance on theauthor’s part; more, one suspects, due to exhaustion!(Ray Bradley confesses as much in the Preface to thenew edition . . .). It is not only paleolimnology whichreceives rather short shrift. If periglacial features are

included, why not eolian ones? Changes in the extentof sand deserts also have a direct tie-in to climaticcontrol, in their case via isohyetal shifts, and paleo-wind directions and strengths? Similarly, there is nomention of how Late Holocene peat stratigraphies havebeen used to reveal century-scale hydro-climatic shiftsin bog surface wetness. By contrast, pollen analysis isgiven the full treatment, in a 40 page chapter whichincludes not only the basis of the method, but also anevaluation of recent numerical pollen-climate spacemodels.

The final three chapters of the book deal withdendroclimatology, documentary records of climate,and paleoclimate models; all excellent, and with thelast of them being new.

Taking the new edition as a whole, the disappointmentover the paucity of matters paleolimnological does notdetract significantly from the book’s overall merit. Withthe first edition of this book, Ray Bradley producedone of the defining paleoclimatology texts of the1980s; with this substantially revised second edition,he has provided us with a fine, authoritative up-datein a rapidly moving field of research. A third editionmay be too much to ask, but I, for one, would not wishto discourage him!

NEIL ROBERTS

Quaternary Environments Research GroupDepartment of Geographical Sciences

University of PlymouthDrake Circus

PlymouthDevon PL4 8AA, UK