GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Organisms, such as diatoms, forams, and coral serve as useful climate proxies. Other proxies include ice cores, tree rings, and sediment cores (which include diatoms, foraminifera, microbiota, pollen, and charcoal within the sediment and the sediment itself).

Detailed explanation-2: -These proxy data are preserved physical characteristics of the environment that can stand in for direct measurements. Paleoclimatologists gather proxy data from natural recorders of climate variability such as corals, pollen, ice cores, tree rings, caves, pack rat middens, ocean and lake sediments, and historical data.

Detailed explanation-3: -Ice cores from glaciers and the polar ice caps are probably the most comprehensive type of proxy record of past climates. Physical and chemical analysis of ice cores provides information on temperature, precipitation, atmospheric aerosols (such as dust and volcanic ash), and even levels of solar activity.

Detailed explanation-4: -Ocean & Lake Sediments Ocean sediments are perhaps one of the most common proxy records paleoclimatologists use to reconstruct climate on hundred, thousand, and million year timescales.