Earth surface processes and environmental changes in East Asia. Records from lake-catchment systems / Экзогенные процессы и изменение окружающей среды в Восточной Азии. По данным исследования озерных отложений

We may be faced with natural and anthropogenic environmental changes never found in instrumental observation records, not only locally but also globally. Generally, it is comparatively easy to find the cause and effect of local and shortterm changes, whereas it is difficult to establish causal relationships for global and long-term environmental issues. One of the most significant issues in environmental changes to be discussed is knowing how earth surface environments responded to the changes in the past, because that knowledge is required in order to estimate future environmental responses to changes. We have only limited short-term observational data in the instrumental observation period to provide some clues to find causal relations for the estimation. Most areas lack past quantitative records, especially data available for quantitative discussion, although data on earth surface responses to large and long-term global changes are included in past proxy records. <...>