The applicability of paleontological research to the study of climate change

Paleontology—the study of prehistoric organisms, how they evolved, and what environments they lived in—can be a crucial source for understanding climate change as a whole. By studying prehistoric climates, researchers can deduce how animals in the past reacted to these climate shifts and whether they survived or went extinct. Unfortunately, various stereotypes and biases against the study of prehistoric climates, formally known as paleoclimatic studies, and the question of reliability from proxy data and climate models restrain the field’s potential to help create sufficient emergency measures for a swiftly-changing planet. This paper reviews why paleoclimatic data is assumed irrelevant in professional and public spaces and questions this skepticism. By creating a bridge between climate-caused extinction-level events and modern phenomena, we can determine the consequences of global warming that could have a destructive impact on the planet in the future.