The future of the world’s climate (long term temperature, rainfall etc) is clearly of importance to everyone. There is clear evidence that the climate has changed in the past, is rapidly changing now and will continue to change in the future, bringing more unstable weather (daily changes in temperature, rainfall etc), causing droughts, fires and storms, flooding low-lying places, and probably already causing wars and mass migrations of people.

The main international body making predictions about climate change is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which assesses the science related to climate change and provides policy-makers
with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and
options for adaptation and mitigation.

The IPCC does not do it’s own research. Instead it co-ordinates research from scientists across the world, bringing their results together to make their conclusions.

Another organistion which supports research aimed at understanding the Earth’s past environment in order to make predictions for the future is PAGES, a project within the University of Bern, Switzerland . They encourage international and interdisciplinary collaborations and seek to promote the involvement of scientists from developing countries in the global paleo-community discourse.

PAGES scope of interest includes the physical climate system, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem processes, biodiversity, and human dimensions, on different time scales – Pleistocene, Holocene, last millennium and the recent past.