Palaeoclimate and anthropogenic impact on aquatic ecosystems as inferred from the analyses of natural archives

Palaeoecological/palaeoclimate studies are at present one of the major issues in Ecology. High-quality natural archives such as ice cores and marine/lacustrine sediments contain information on both the history of climatic forcing and the corresponding climatic response superimposed on the internal system variability. This report summarises the scope and rationale of palaeoclimate science and documents in a brief overview the main goals, tasks, and problems that are commonly encountered in the study of past global changes.