This book brings together many lines of evidence which shed light on the present-day climate of the Earth. The contributions first concern studies of marine geology, including isotopic variation, sedimentology and palaentology, both in regional detail and against a broader Northern Hemisphere background. Secondly, they concern evidence for climatic history on the continents, from the eastern USA, and the Canadian eastern Arctic, Iceland, and western Europe. The connection between marine and continental palaeoclimatic histories is also discussed in several of the contributions. The synthesis provided underlines the complexity of the consequences of global climatic change for the geosphere and biosphere.