Mean annual temperature reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change increases at least 1.1°C to 6.4°C over the next 90 years. In context, a change in climate of 6°C is approximately the difference between the mean annual temperature of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and our current warm interglacial. Species have been responding to changing climate throughout Earth's history and t...

This study addresses the strength of the statistical relationship between paleoclimate data and the Earth orbital forcing. A methodology called the nonparametric additive model (NPAM) was used to relate δ18O data of the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) ice core and reconstructed temperatures of the Vostok ice core to eccentricity, obliquity, and precession. Both data sets depended linea...

Environmental variables such as temperature and salinity cannot be directly measured for the past. Such variables do, however, influence the chemistry and biology of the marine sedimentary record in a measurable way. Reconstructing the past environment is therefore possible by ‘proxy’. Such proxy reconstruction uses chemical and biological observations to assess two aspects of Earth’s climate s...