Economic and ecological impacts of abrupt climate change

Most studies of the potential ecological and economic impacts of climate change and greenhouse warming have focused on scenarios that involve gradual climate change. Accumulating evidence from the paleosciences, however, shows that the patterns of change suggested by projections of future climate change are not representative of past climatic changes or of the transitions between different climatic regimes. In particular, many recent paleostudies indicate that current climate is much more stable than were climates in earlier periods.