Climate Change — Past, Present and Future: A Personal Perspective

Abstract

The record of instrumental temperature measurements clearly documents a systematic rise in global temperatures since the mid-19th century. However, there are insufficient data to say if this warming is part of a longer-term trend, a quasi-periodic oscillation or even if it is quite unusual. In order to answer such questions, we must place the relatively short instrumental record in a longer-term perspective, and to do that we must rely on palaeoclimatic information. Palaeoclimatic archives are natural phenomena that have in some way recorded in their structure a record of past climate. They are a treasure trove of the climatic and environmental history of the planet.