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.

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.

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.

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