Radiocarbon and Climate Change
Mechanisms, Applications and Laboratory Techniques
- 322 pages
- 12 hours of reading
This guide is essential for researchers in ecology and earth science focused on accelerator mass spectrometry technology. It explores the advancements in radiocarbon measurements, providing insights into human impacts on global carbon cycling and climate change. By encompassing radiocarbon theory, history, applications, and analytical techniques, it outlines the field's role in understanding changes in the global carbon cycle and its connections to climate change. Each chapter features both classic and contemporary studies from various disciplines related to radiocarbon and carbon cycling. Additionally, it discusses the history and discovery of radiocarbon, along with advancements in measurement techniques and theory. Understanding human alterations to the global carbon cycle and the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and climate is a critical environmental challenge at the intersection of ecology and earth system science. While many recognize terms like "global warming" and "climate change," fewer grasp the underlying science. This book addresses key questions regarding the carbon cycle's link to climate change, current evidence of carbon dioxide's fate from human activities, historical shifts in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and how radiocarbon and stable isotopes can quantify human impacts on the global carbon cycle.
