2026 | From the past to the future: how does the study of natural climate archives advance our understanding of future climate change?
The Bolin Centre was honoured to welcome Dr. Valérie Masson-Delmotte as the Bert Bolin Climate Lecturer for 2026. Dr. Masson-Delmotte is the Research Director of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory (LSCE).
About the lecture
From the past to the future: how does the study of natural climate archives advance our understanding of future climate change?
During the past decades, the study of natural climate archives such as ice cores, tree rings, lake or deep-sea sediments has transformed our understanding of our climate system and its past variations. In this lecture, Dr Masson-Delmotte explores how this knowledge allows us to place today's observed rapid climate change in a broader perspective and disentangle human-caused climate change from natural variations, how it provides empirical evidence for the long-term implications of warmer conditions, how it is used to evaluate the skills of climate models and enhance confidence on future climate projections, and what can be learned regarding our plausible futures – depending on our collective choices.
Watch “From the past to the future: how does the study of natural climate archives advance our understanding of future climate change?”
About the lecturer
Dr. Valérie Masson-Delmotte is a leading French climate scientist and palaeoclimatologist. She is Research Director at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE) and has played a key role in advancing our understanding of past and future climate change. Her research combines evidence from ice cores, climate records and modelling to investigate climate variability and the Earth’s climate system.
From 2015 to 2023, she served as Co-Chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which assesses the physical science basis of climate change, and contributed to several landmark IPCC reports. She is internationally recognised for her scientific leadership and for communicating climate science to decision-makers and the public.
Read more about Dr.Masson-Delmotte on the LSCE website.
Last updated: 2026-06-19
Source: Department of Geological Sciences