Paleoclimatology and climate system dynamics

Jonathan T. Overpeck

NOAA Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, Colorado¹

¹ Also at Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, The University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309

• Introduction
• The Role of the Paleo-Sciences in Understanding Climate System Dynamics
• Natural Variability: Patterns and Processes
  • The Spectrum of Climatic Variability and its Gaps
  • The Tectonic Band: The Evolution of Earth and Atmosphere
    • The Milankovitch band.
    • The millennial-centennial band.
    • The decadal-interannual band.
• Climatic Surprises
• Testing and Improving Predictive Models
• Detecting and Explaining Environmental Change
• Conclusion
• References