TBA

“Geological perspectives on climate change: from our local rocks to the IPCC” Abstract: “It has long been recognised by geologists that Earth's climate has changed over timescales of thousands to millions of years. Understanding the record and drivers of these past changes informs our knowledge of the environmental history and biotic evolution of our planet but also provides insights into ongoing, and future, anthropogenically-forced, climate change. Critically, the range of past climate states represented in the geological record allow us to probe the major controls and mechanisms that affect climate over a range of atmospheric CO2 levels. This allows us to offer perspectives on Earth system variables that are critical to predicting future climate change, such as climate sensitivity to CO2 (the amount of global warming that will occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2). This talk will explore some of the ways that geologists reconstruct past climates and discuss examples of how the geological past can contribute to predictions of the future.”