Learning More Effectively from Climate’s Past

Scholars have long studied past climatic fluctuations to help today’s societies survive and thrive in a changing climate. To evaluate how scholars of past climate engage with global warming activism and policy development, we analyze 1,191 publications on historical climate fluctuations. We find that studies on past climate are biased towards analyzing environmental (as opposed to social) changes in world regions that may be least vulnerable to global warming. We also find that, although most publications in the field claim to be relevant for present-day efforts to confront global warming, very few explain how they are relevant or provide specific recommendations that could be used to inform climate policymaking and activism. This gap between claims of relevance and actual relevance is especially striking in the scientific study of past climate. We provide a set of principles to help scholars of past climate engage in present-day efforts to confront global warming.