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Climate: Past, Present & Future

Climate of the Past

Winds of change – How can we reconstruct the directions of winds in the past?

April 14, 2026
Winds of change – How can we reconstruct the directions of winds in the past?
Figure 1: Map of Central Asia showing dominant influences on directions of dust transporting winds (in purple). The Caspian Sea Hindu Kush Index (CasHKI), a pressure difference between the Caspian Sea and the Hindu Kush mountains, leads to a deflection of westerly winds (Kaskaoutis et al., 2017). The winds are further deflected by the Alai, Pamir and Hindu Kush Mountains. Black star shows the location of the study described here. Figure from Schneider et al. (2026).

Invited guest from the EGU 2025 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award Wind is not easily visible. On historical time scales, its directions and velocities have been measured and recorded by instruments. To some degree, these parameters can also be simulated by climate models. But how about winds in the more distant past? And why would we want to know about them? In many p ...[Read More]

When a major climate event goes almost unnoticed: the elusive 8.2 ka signal in southern France stalagmites

and April 2, 2026
When a major climate event goes almost unnoticed: the elusive 8.2 ka signal in southern France stalagmites
Graphical abstract of our study highlighting the elusive expression of the 8.2 ka event in southern France, based on speleothem multiproxy evidence from the Ardèche region.

  Around 8,200 years ago, the climate of the Northern Hemisphere experienced an abrupt disturbance. In Greenland ice cores, the signal is unmistakable: a rapid drop in temperatures, followed by a gradual return to previous conditions. This episode, which lasted about 150 years, is known as the 8.2 ka event (“ka” meaning thousand years before 1950). It is often described as the most prominent ...[Read More]

When European pollution reshaped the Asian summer monsoon

March 23, 2026
When European pollution reshaped the Asian summer monsoon

  The Asian summer monsoon is one of the most powerful climate phenomena on Earth. Each year, it brings life-giving rainfall to billions of people across South and East Asia. Its arrival determines harvests, water supply, food security, and economic stability. We often think of the monsoon as something driven locally: by the heating of the Indian subcontinent, by ocean temperatures, or by reg ...[Read More]

CYCLIM: cycle counting a faster way

February 6, 2026
CYCLIM: cycle counting a faster way
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As we try to predict what will happen under increasing anthropogenic climate change, climate models can only get us so far. Another key is understanding past changes in the Earth’s climate. To do this, palaeoclimatologists turn to natural archives (e.g., sediment cores and speleothems) and extract records of past variability using their properties, such as chemical or physical composition. H ...[Read More]