List of periods and events in climate history

The list of periods and events in climate history includes some notable climate events known to paleoclimatology. Knowledge of precise climatic events decreases as the record goes further back in time. The timeline of glaciation covers ice ages specifically, which tend to have their own names for phases, often with different names used for different parts of the world. The names for earlier periods and events come from geology and paleontology. The marine isotope stages (MIS) are often used to express dating within the Quaternary.


500 million years of climate change
Ice core data for the past 400,000 years, with the present at right. Note length of glacial cycles averages ~100,000 years. Blue curve is temperature, green curve is CO2, and red curve is windblown glacial dust (loess).

Scale: Millions of years before present, earlier dates approximate.

Pleistocene

All dates are approximate. "(B-S)" means this is one of the periods from the Blytt-Sernander sequence, originally based on studies of Danish peat bogs.

Holocene

All dates are BC (BCE) and approximate. "(B-S)" means this is one of the periods from the Blytt-Sernander sequence, originally based on studies of Danish peat bogs.

Common Era/AD

See also

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