Das Projekt "Schnelle Klimaaenderungen in Europa und die Palaeoklimatologie des juengsten Eiszeit-/Zwischeneiszeitzyklus" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Hohenheim, Fakultät II Biologie, Institut für Botanik und Botanischer Garten durchgeführt. Objective: To quantify climatic change (especially warm and wet periods) in the last two interglacials, during the transitions to the following ice ages, and in the corresponding late glacial and selected interstadial stages. General information: research will quantify the course of warm and wet periodes during major climate fluctuations of the past, on the finest possible timescale based on analysis of seasonal marine deposits in central Europe. The research will concentrate not only on the end of the last two interglacials but also on major interstadials during the last ice age and the late glacial stages of the last two ice ages. The background to this research is the hypothesis, much discussed in the recent literature, that the climate of the last interglacial may have changed into the last ice age within a space of 150 +/-75 years; it is further suggested that the swing between the cold phases and warm phases (interstadials) of ice ages have been equally rapid and the even faster temperature downturns have occurred within interglacials. The accuracy of the climate reconstructions is to be checked through features unrelated to pollen production and deposition, such as the point when the permafrost has appeared and disappeared at the transition between cold and warm periods or the distribution during warm periods of flora and fauna highly sensitive to temperature. The time taken by such species to spread has to be taken into account. The influx of new species is fairly well understood from previous work and should pose no insuperable problems.