List of periods and events in climate history

Knowledge of precise climatic events decreases as the record goes further back in time.

The marine isotope stages (MIS) are often used to express dating within the Quaternary.

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

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

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

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 CO 2 , and red curve is windblown glacial dust (loess).