List of periods and events in climate history

The list of periods and events in climate history includes some notable climate events known to paleoclimatology. Knowledge of precise climatic events decreases as the record goes further back in time. The timeline of glaciation covers ice ages specifically, which tend to have their own names for phases, often with different names used for different parts of the world. The names for earlier periods and events come from geology and paleontology. The marine isotope stages (MIS) are often used to express dating within the Quaternary.

Before 1 million years ago

Scale: Millions of years before present, earlier dates approximate. Date(Mya)Event Before 1,000 Faint young Sun paradox 2,400 Great Oxidation Event probably leads to Huronian glaciation perhaps covering the whole globe 650–600 Later Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth or Marinoan glaciation, precursor to the Cambrian explosion 517 End-Botomian mass extinction; like the next two, little understood 502 Dresbachian extinction event Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event 450–440 Ordovician–Silurian extinction event, in two bursts, after cooling perhaps caused by tectonic plate movement 450 Andean-Saharan glaciation 360–260 Karoo Ice Age 305 Cooler climate causes Carboniferous rainforest collapse 251.9 Permian–Triassic extinction event 199.6 Triassic–Jurassic extinction event, causes as yet unclear 66 Perhaps 30,000 years of volcanic activity form the Deccan Traps in India, or a large meteor impact. Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary and Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, extinction of non-avian dinosaurs 55.8 Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum 53.7 Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 49 Azolla event may have ended a long warm period 5.3–2.6 Pliocene climate became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. 2.5 to present Quaternary glaciation, with permanent ice on the polar regions, many named stages in different parts of the world

Pleistocene All dates are approximate. "(B-S)" means this is one of the periods from the Blytt-Sernander sequence, originally based on studies of Danish peat bogs. Date(BC)Event 118,000–88,000 Abbassia Pluvial wet in North Africa 108,000–8,000 Last Glacial Period, not to be confused with the Last Glacial Maximum or Late Glacial Maximum below.(The following events also fall into this period.) 48,000–28,000 Mousterian Pluvial wet in North Africa 26,500–19,000 Last Glacial Maximum, what is often meant in popular usage by "Last Ice Age" 16,000–13,000 Oldest Dryas cold, begins slowly and ends sharply (B-S) 12,700 Antarctic Cold Reversal warmer Antarctic, sea level rise 12,400 Bølling oscillation warm and wet in the North Atlantic, begins the Bølling-Allerød period (B-S) 12,400–11,500 (much discussed) Older Dryas cold, interrupts warm period for some centuries (B-S) 12,000–11,000 Allerød oscillation warm & moist (B-S) 11,400–9,500 Huelmo–Mascardi Cold Reversal cold in Southern Hemisphere 10,800–9,500 Younger Dryas sudden cold and dry period in Northern Hemisphere (B-S) 9,500–5,500 Holocene climatic optimum A warm period about 4.9 °C warmer than the LGM

Holocene All dates are BC (BCE) and approximate. "(B-S)" means this is one of the periods from the Blytt-Sernander sequence, originally based on studies of Danish peat bogs. Date(BC)Event From 10,000 Holocene glacial retreat, the present Holocene or Postglacial period begins 9400 Pre-Boreal sharp rise in temperature over 50 years (B-S), precedes Boreal 8500–6900 Boreal (B-S), rising sea levels, forest replaces tundra in northern Europe 7500–3900 Neolithic Subpluvial/African humid period in North Africa, wet 7000–3000 Holocene climatic optimum, or Atlantic in northern Europe (B-S) 6200 8.2-kiloyear event cold 5000–4100 Older Peron warm and wet, global sea levels were higher than the twentieth-century average 3900 5.9 kiloyear event dry and cold. 3500 End of the African humid period, Neolithic Subpluvial in North Africa, expands Sahara Desert 3000 – 0 Neopluvial in North America 3,200–2,900 Piora Oscillation, cold, perhaps not global. Wetter in Europe, drier elsewhere, linked to the domestication of the horse in Central Asia. 2200 4.2-kiloyear event dry, lasted most of the 22nd century BC, linked to the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, various archaeological cultures in Persia and China 1800–1500 Middle Bronze Age Cold Epoch, a period of unusually cold climate in the North Atlantic region Bond Event 2Possibly triggering the Late Bronze Age collapse 900–300 Iron Age Cold Epoch cold in North Atlantic. Perhaps associated with the Homeric Minimum 250 BC–400 ADRoman Warm Period

Common Era/AD Climate changes of 535-536 (535–536 AD), sudden cooling and failure of harvests, perhaps caused by volcanic dust 900–1300 Medieval Warm Period, wet in Europe, arid in North America, may have depopulated the Great Plains of North America, associated with the Medieval renaissances in Europe Great Famine of 1315–1317 in Europe Little Ice Age: Various dates between 1250 and 1550 or later are held to mark the start of the Little ice age, ending at equally varied dates around 1850 1460–1550 Spörer Minimum cold 1656–1715 Maunder Minimum low sunspot activity 1790–1830 Dalton Minimum low sunspot activity, cold 1816 Year Without a Summer, caused by volcanic dust of Mount Tambora eruption 1850–present Retreat of glaciers since 1850, instrumental temperature record Present and recent past global warming, perhaps to be named the Anthropocene period

See also Climate change (modern day) Climate change (general concept) Climate across Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary Thermal history of Earth Geologic temperature record Timeline of prehistory