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Climate science

Water's past revisited to predict its future

Nature volume 532, pages 44–45 (2016)Cite this article

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A reconstruction of 1,200 years of water's history in the Northern Hemisphere, based on proxy data, fuels the debate about whether anthropogenic climate change affected twentieth-century precipitation. See Letter p.94

Predicting future climate is one of science's great challenges1. Climate models are key to these predictions, but such models must be validated through comparison with, and integration of, measured or proxy-based climate data2. On page 94 of this issue, Ljungqvist et al.3 take on this challenge by reconstructing the past 12 centuries of water history in the Northern Hemisphere from proxy records. Their reconstruction for the twentieth century diverges sharply from climate-modelling results, and calls for greater development of water-sensitive proxy data and their integration into modelling efforts.

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Figure 1: Calcite columns in Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico.

Michael Nichols/National Geographic Creative

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  1. Matthew E. Kirby is in the Department of Geological Sciences, California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, California 92834, USA.

    Matthew E. Kirby

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  1. Matthew E. Kirby
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Correspondence to Matthew E. Kirby.

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Kirby, M. Water's past revisited to predict its future. Nature 532, 44–45 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/532044a

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