Scientists are measuring, collecting and processing vast amounts of data to understand the climate and the processes which drive it, in an undertaking that involves biologists, geologists, physicists and many more disciplines, all collaborating across the world.
Efforts include drilling into ancient ice, studying atmospheric gases and documenting changes in archaeological sites and bird populations.
The data are being used to create models which can project how climate change will affect different parts of the planet.
The work is dangerous, ranging from arduous Antarctic field campaigns to political attacks on climate researchers, but is seen as vital for alerting policymakers and the public to the scale of the threats posed by climate change.
The urgency and scale of the climate challenge, and the need for a wide range of experts to collaborate to understand and address it, makes the building of climate science the most significant scientific collaboration in human history, one contributor says.
