Past and future climate projections and their relevance for human society – a journey in time

Abstract

Present climate change issues have reached the top on the agenda of decision makers on national, regional and global level. Climate science directly contributes to socio-economic planning in our society despite the unavoidable uncertainties associated to the research tools we have used. The presentation reviews the research related to climate modeling as a tool for generating knowledge applied to past and present climate changes in Earth and human history and associated uncertainties from the perspective of future society development.  The presentation shows that, in the context of adaptation to present climate change, ignoring knowledge together with related uncertainties about past and future climate might lead to high social, economic and environmental costs.