Arctic climate history

This chapter begins by considering the Arctic as a human concept with origins in antiquity. Aristotle (384–322 bc) postulated the existence of a northerly Frigid Zone where human life would be impossible. Unlike the Antarctic, the concept of the frozen Arctic began and remains an idea. It originated as a supposition denoting a region that was imagined but unseen by the civilized world, despite the fact that human beings had been living there for 27,000 years. The chapter then describes the characteristics of polar climates, covering temperature regime variations, sea levels and oceanicity, the polar night, and Climatic consequences of winter ice. This is followed by discussions of polar climatic history, Cenozoic temperature changes, and Pleistocene climate changes.