This is the English translation (and German facsimile) of Wladimir Köppen and Alfred Wegener
(1924): The Climates of the Geological Past (Die Klimate der geologischen Vorzeit) a landmark
text of early paleoclimatological research actually a textbook of paleoclimatology. Wegener is
best known for his theory of continental drift (The Origin of the Continents and Oceans 1915).
Less widely known but equally important are the studies he conducted on the climates of the
past (with his colleague and father-in-law Wladimir Köppen) which they jointly published
(this book). Only one edition of the book was published but unfortunately all - save a few
private copies - were destroyed during the second World War rendering the book essentially
unavailable. This English translation makes Köppen and Wegener's landmark text accessible to
the international climate research community. It also includes the Supplements and Corrections
by Wladimir Köppen to this book published in 1940 shortly before his death and a decade
after Alfred Wegener's untimely death on Greenland. The translation (and the facsimile) have
both been enhanced by subject indices which the original book was lacking. The discussion of
the course and causal relationship of climates and climate change in the geological past are of
principal scientific interest. Important elements of the discussions herein stem from the close
collaboration with Milutin Milankovitch (who contributed entire sections of text but is not
named as an author). Building on the principles of the Milankovitch frequencies allowed Köppen
and Wegener for the first time early in the last century to establish a precise time scale of
Late Cenozoic glacial-interglacial cycles. More recently the orbital parameters originally
calculated by Milankovitch were refined using time series data from deep-sea sediments and ice
cores. Furthermore Milankovitch's cycles may be extrapolated into the future to predict
climate change. This very book in which Köppen and Wegener roll out their theory is therefore
an important publication which has early on shaped our understanding of how climate has evolved
and continuously evolves in the course of time. This translation affords non-German-speaking
scientists and laypersons alike access to the full and compelling arguments of climate change
carefully and readably laid out and argued. It is a must-read for anybody interested in climate
change be it from a historic or present point of view.
