How Do We Study Climate?
In order to learn how the climate is changing, scientists needed a way to study past climates. The earliest records of temperature stretch back to the late 1600s in Europe. By the beginning of the 1900s records were being kept in almost every region on the planet. This data allows scientists to directly study changes in global temperature in the last 100 years. To really understand climate, scientists needed to be able to look back even farther. This is where proxies come into play.
A proxy is a way for scientists to study climates where record keeping was not available. Proxies include tree rings, corals, fossils, sediment cores, pollens, and ice cores. To learn more about proxies visit NOAA's Paleoclimatology website.
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