Paleoclimate

Paleoclimatology (in British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth. It uses a variety of proxy methods from the Earth and life sciences to obtain data previously preserved within things such as rocks, sediments, ice sheets, tree rings, corals, shells and microfossils. It then uses the records to determine the past states of the Earth's various climate regions and its atmospheric system. Studies of past changes in the environment and biodiversity often reflect on the current situation, specifically the impact of climate on mass extinctions and biotic recovery.

The scientific study field of paleoclimate began to form in the early 19th century, when discoveries about glaciations and natural changes in Earth's past climate helped to understand the greenhouse effect.The first observations which had a real scientific basis were probably those by John Hardcastle in New Zealand, in the 1880s. He noted that the loess deposits at Timaru in the South Island recorded changes in climate; he called the loess a 'climate register'.

Paleoclimatologists employ a wide variety of techniques to deduce ancient climates.

Mountain glaciers and the polar ice caps/ice sheets provide much data in paleoclimatology. Ice-coring projects in the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica have yielded data going back several hundred thousand years, over 800,000 years in the case of the EPICA project.

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