Improvements in technology and methods are enabling ever more precise sampling of past climates (palaeoclimates). Traditional data sources such as tree rings have been supplemented with additional sources like speleothems (stalagmites and stalactites) as well as isotope geochronology. These are making it possible to reconstruct not just average temperatures and rainfalls, but also seasonality and extreme events such as droughts. Climate-related phenomena such as changing sea levels and palaeotsunamis are also being reconstructed in unprecedented detail. The dataset has also been extended further back in time, with palaeoclimate data spanning the entire 7 million years of hominin evolution. However, significant gaps remain.²⁷

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

A greater range of past climate conditions are explored

New and improved palaeoclimate proxies enable the sampling of a greater range of past conditions, such as pressure and wind regimes. Cheaper and more accessible sampling techniques facilitate the expansion of palaeoclimate studies to previously understudied regions, such as Central Asia and South America.

10-yearhorizon

Palaeoclimate reconstructions become more reliable

Researchers achieve standardised methods for assessing palaeoclimate proxies, in particular for controlling for confounding factors, enabling reliable and systematic reconstructions. Reliable identification of multicentennial trends and cycles in palaeoclimate becomes possible.

25-yearhorizon

The impacts of climate change on hominin history are clarified

Research achieves high-resolution global paleoclimate records for the entire span of hominin evolution — that is, from 7 million years ago to the present. This enables detailed reconstruction of the impacts of climatic change on hominin evolution and hominin habitats. Massive online databases of paleoclimate data improve accessibility of information and enable new analyses.

The accumulating palaeoclimate data enables archaeologists to link ancient climatic trends and events with hominin evolution and historical events.²⁸ Shifts in climate and the associated modifications to ecosystems have been associated with key moments in hominin evolution in Africa,²⁹,³⁰ including diversification and the formation of new species.³¹Similarly, climatic impacts on distributions of hominin species have been identified.³²,³³,³⁴,³⁵ In some cases, palaeoclimate data suggests where hominins might have lived during periods where no actual archaeological data are available.³⁶

Data suggest that extreme climatic events may be linked to societal disruptions like wars and even collapses. Understanding how and why some societies endured while others folded may offer insight for our own climate-threatened future.³⁷,³⁸

There is an urgent need to gather palaeoclimate data as rapidly and widely as possible because contemporary climate change is erasing many key forms of evidence, such as the air bubbles trapped inside the ice of glaciers that are now melting.³⁹

Palaeoclimate studies - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.