The future effects of climate change will potentially have massive impacts upon society,
infrastructure, energy and food supplies. Considerable research is focused upon the
development of sophisticated predictive climate models that forecast the implications and
effects of climate change over the next few millennia. However, two obvious questions arise.
Firstly, how can we test whether these models work? Secondly, are we being short-sighted
and not looking far enough into the future? Both of these questions can be examined by
looking at analogues from the geological record
