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Paleoclimatology (thesaurus)

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Concept information

climate > paleoclimate

Preferred term

paleoclimate  

Definition

  • A paleoclimate is a climate of a given time interval in the geologic past. The scientific study field of paleoclimatology began to further take shape in the early 19th century, when discoveries about glaciations and natural changes in Earth's past climate helped to understand the greenhouse effect. It was only in the 20th century that paleoclimatology became a unified scientific field. Before, different aspects of Earth's climate history were studied by a variety of disciplines. At the end of the 20th century, the empirical research into Earth's ancient climates started to be combined with computer models of increasing complexity. A new objective also developed in this period: finding ancient analog climates that could provide information about current climate change. Paleoclimatologists employ a wide variety of techniques to deduce ancient climates. The techniques used depend on which variable has to be reconstructed (temperature, precipitation or something else) and on how long ago the climate of interest occurred. For instance, the deep marine record, the source of most isotopic data, exists only on oceanic plates, which are eventually subducted: the oldest remaining material is 200 million years old. Older sediments are also more prone to corruption by diagenesis. Resolution and confidence in the data decrease over time. The field of geochronology has scientists working on determining how old certain proxies are. For recent proxy archives of tree rings and corals the individual year rings can be counted and an exact year can be determined. Radiometric dating uses the properties of radioactive elements in proxies. In older material, more of the radioactive material will have decayed and the proportion of different elements will be different from newer proxies. One example of radiometric dating is radiocarbon dating. In the air, cosmic rays constantly convert nitrogen into a specific radioactive carbon isotope, 14C. When plants then use this carbon to grow, this isotope is not replenished anymore and starts decaying. The proportion of 'normal' carbon and Carbon-14 gives information of how long the plant material has not been in contact with the atmosphere. (Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology)

Broader concept

Related concepts

Entry terms

  • climate of the past
  • palaeo climate
  • palaeo-climate
  • palaeoclimate
  • paleo climate
  • paleo-climate
  • past climate

In other languages

  • paléoclimat

    French

  • climat du passé
  • paléo climat
  • paléo-climat

URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/QX8-XS7PL3DL-5

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