Climate models show that climate change is not a uniform process. Areas of increased temperature are situated near areas of decreased temperature, areas with increased precipitation adjoin areas of drought. This is one of the reasons why climate change is so difficult to detect. Any parameter must be considered and tested locally or regionally and not on an average globally. This book gives an overview of current research methods and results in the different fields of climate research including modelling. In addition, it contains a hemisphere-wide stratigraphic data base with about 80000 species. All paleoclimatic data as well as a state-of-the-art atmospheric circulation model in a PC version are included. So both research and graduate teaching are supported with high-end software running on affordable computers, also in those countries that have no access to Cray super computers. Thus, this book will be of interest to all researchers and scientists in the field of climatology.