This is an annotated anthology of published, refereed papers that, in my view, are fundamental to an understanding of the science of climate change. Millions of papers are published each year, and thus it is difficult to reduce the myriad of articles to just forty-four fundamental papers. Moreover, this annotated anthology is compiled from a climate change realist perspective, rather than an alarmist one. Its purpose is to present a list of the cadre of articles that convey the current understanding of climate change and to provide an interpretation of their significance from a layman’s perspective. To be included, these papers must have been published in reputable refereed journals.

Although the papers span 128 years (from 1896 to 2023), most of the articles were written during the last fifteen. In part, this is because the science is developing and more papers are written each year than the year before. Moreover, it also takes several years before the full importance of a paper becomes apparent and it is vetted by the larger scientific community. But also contributing has been the nature of the development of the field of climatology over the past seventy-five years.

Originally, the study of climate, or climatology, was largely an actuarial science. Research usually focused on climate classification (identification of the various climates of the earth) by examining the average and variability of weather conditions for a given region. In addition, much research was focused on applied climatology—the description, definition, interpretation, and explanation of the relationship between climate and a wide variety of weather-sensitive activities. Since it overlapped with many disciplines, applied climatology is very broad and eclectic, and thus the climatologist had to be conversant not just in climatology, but also in studies affected by weather and climate, such as agriculture, business, and engineering.

Climate change was not usually a topic of discussion since climate was described as “average weather.” But in the middle of the last century, it became clear that climate itself was variable and subject to changes caused by natural variability and human-induced effects. This led to a new area of inquiry related to the study of climate dynamics, which fostered a plethora of questions related to climate change. Although recent research exhibits an inordinate focus on the impact of greenhouse gases and the behavior of climate models, climatology has emerged as a complex and sophisticated area of research, far removed from its roots as the simple study of the statistics of local climates.

Selection of these forty-four papers was a very difficult task and reflects my biases on what constitutes the cadre of important papers on climate change. I have tried to provide a viable cross-section of papers that addressed important questions as well as those which have provided breakthrough research that changed the course of climate change research. If I have omitted or missed a paper that you feel would be a better choice, you have my apologies.

Putting this list together has been enjoyable; I hope you find the articles and their layman’s abstracts interesting as well.