Data gathered through ice and ocean sediment cores, tree rings, cave deposits, and other sources provide an understanding of past climates and climate changes prior to direct human observations. These paleoclimatic studies infer past climate changes on time scales ranging from decades to millions of years and support the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years.

In this lesson you will learn:
1) The types of data that scientist use to study past climates
2) That paleoclimatic data supports interpretations of global warming

Time Requirement
This lesson should take between 25 to 40 minutes.