Abstract
Placing the short instrumental record of climate into a longer-term perspective provides valuable insights into the envelope of climate variability on timescales of significance to society today. Numerous paleotemperature records reveal that the 20th century has been exceptionally warm in the context of the last millennium, and perhaps many millennia. Furthermore, the coldest decades of the last century (the nadir of the “Little Ice Age”) were among the coldest times in the late Holocene. Thus, the world has experienced both the warmest and the coldest extremes of the late Holocene within a brief interval of less than 200 years. Extending the climate record back in time enables the underlying forcing factors (prior to global-scale anthropogenic effects on the climate system) to be identified. Paleoclimatic data are essential to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the climate system, without which reliable forecasting of future conditions will not be possible.
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