Foreword: Paleomonsoon variations and terrestrial environmental change during the late Quaternary

The foreword to "Paleomonsoon Variations and Terrestrial Environmental Change", a special issue comprised of 18 articles based on papers presented by internationally renown quaternarists at the Berlin (1995) and Siwa (1997) "Paleomonsoons" meetings. It is a contribution to the Paleomonsoons Project of INQUA and PAGES, in coordination with several other international programmes such as the Pole-Equator-Pole Transects (PEP I–III), the International Decade of East African Lakes (IDEAL) and the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP).