The Climate Chronicles

By Dagomar Degroot

Today’s global warming has no precedent in Earth’s history. Yet long before we started overheating the planet, natural climate changes shaped our past. In the Climate Chronicles, Dagomar Degroot, one ... more

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FAQs about The Climate Chronicles:

How many episodes does The Climate Chronicles have?

The podcast currently has 12 episodes available.

The Climate Chronicles episodes:

February 21, 2026 Episode 12: The Natufian Wager
Created, narrated, and produced by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past, and explores what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the season premiere of our third season, Into the Holocene, Professor Degroot investigates one of the greatest turning points in human history: the dawn of agriculture. Touching on everything from farming ants to dying Martians, he explores why our species waited nearly 300,000 years to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. He traces the story of the Natufians of the Levant, who stood on the brink of agriculture just as the Younger Dryas abruptly cooled and dried their world.

Evaluating new evidence from pollen cores, speleothems, and archaeological sites, Degroot asks whether climate stress forced the first farmers into existence — or whether the stable warmth of the Holocene finally allowed their long experiment with cultivation to succeed. And he reflects on how the “Natufian wager” set our species on a path that would transform not just what it meant to be human, but also the destiny of a planet.

Season three of The Climate Chronicles takes listeners on an immersive journey through the extraordinary changes in climate and human culture that shaped the early history of the Holocene, the geological epoch in which humans became the dominant species on our planet. It zooms in on small communities and follows continental trends across thousands of years, all while unpacking the creative detective work that distinguishes the sciences of the past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with citations, as well as maps, graphs, infographics, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
50min
April 07, 2025 Episode 11: Memories of Atlantis
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the fifth and final episode of our second season, Escaping the Pleistocene, Professor Degroot reveals how an extraordinary rise in sea levels, about 10,000 years ago, overwhelmed ecosystems and human populations from Europe to Australia. He evaluates whether ancient myths and legends, including the story of Atlantis, preserve traumatic memories of early Holocene flooding. And he provides some broad reflections on the 100,000 years of human and climate history covered in this season.

Season two of The Climate Chronicles is an immersive journey through the extreme climate shifts that influenced some of the most important events in the history of our species, from a wave of extinctions that transformed ecosystems around the world to the emergence of agriculture. The season also explores the history of the sciences that have revealed how climate change shaped our deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with citations, as well as maps, graphs, infographics, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
50min
March 26, 2025 Episode 10: The Younger Dryas Diaries
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the fourth episode of our second season, Escaping the Pleistocene, Professor Degroot unpacks concepts such as radiocarbon dating and climate vulnerability to explore the ingenious and diverse ways in which our ancestors coped with the Pleistocene's final, and in many ways most spectacular, climate changes. He explains how everything from asteroid impacts to volcanic eruptions may have triggered the dramatic breakdown in ocean currents responsible for the most recent of these changes, a thousand-year cold snap known as the Younger Dryas. Finally, he surveys cutting-edge research that suggests we might soon face a similar breakdown—with profound implications for our modern world.

Season two of The Climate Chronicles is an immersive journey through the extreme climate shifts that influenced some of the most important events in the history of our species, from a wave of extinctions that transformed ecosystems around the world to the emergence of agriculture. The season also explores the history of the sciences that have revealed how climate change shaped our deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with citations, as well as maps, graphs, infographics, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
53min
March 05, 2025 Episode 9: The Last of Them
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the third episode of our second season, Escaping the Pleistocene, Professor Degroot provides different explanations for what may be the ultimate climate change disaster: the extinction of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, a hominin species that may have been as smart as us. He shows us how new computer models can help us understand the possible causes for the disappearance of the Neanderthals, and considers whether their extinction provides a warning for our future.

Season two of The Climate Chronicles is an immersive journey through the extreme climate shifts that influenced some of the most important events in the history of our species, from a wave of extinctions that transformed ecosystems around the world to the emergence of agriculture. The season also explores the history of the sciences that have revealed how climate change shaped our deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with citations, as well as maps, graphs, infographics, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
40min
February 25, 2025 Episode 8: The Sapien Shock
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the second episode of our second season, Escaping the Pleistocene, Professor Degroot explores how climate change influenced humanity's migration out of Africa, and into lands no other hominin had been to before. He unpacks why proving climate’s role in human migration (or any historical event) is so challenging. Then, he investigates the worldwide wave of extinctions that coincided both with humanity's dispersal around the world, and with the extreme climatic upheavals of the late Pleistocene.

Season two of The Climate Chronicles is an immersive journey through the extreme climate shifts that influenced some of the most important events in the history of our species, from a wave of extinctions that transformed ecosystems around the world to the emergence of agriculture. The season also explores the history of the sciences that have revealed how climate change shaped our deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with citations, as well as maps, graphs, infographics, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
46min
February 18, 2025 Episode 7: Avoiding the Apocalypse
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the first episode of our second season, Escaping the Pleistocene, Professor Degroot describes the two biggest explosions in human history: the catastrophic eruptions of the Los Chocoyos and Toba super volcanoes, about 75,000 years ago. These cataclysmic blasts chilled the Earth—but recent research suggests that, against all odds, most of our ancestors survived unscathed.

Season two of The Climate Chronicles is an immersive journey through the extreme climate shifts that influenced some of the most important events in the history of our species, from a wave of extinctions that transformed ecosystems around the world to the emergence of agriculture. The season also explores the history of the sciences that have revealed how climate change shaped our deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
32min
February 11, 2025 Episode 6: Growing up in the Glacials
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the fifth and final episode of our first season, Becoming Human, Professor Degroot tells the epic story of how climate change spurred the evolution of the last hominin species - including our own. He explains how ancient DNA is uncovering previously hidden chapters in this remarkable tale. He shows how industrialization and famine originally brought it to light. And he closes the season by considering the implications of the deep histories we've explored in the past five episodes.

The Climate Chronicles is really an audio book. The complete first season gives a unique overview not only of how climate change may have created our species, but also of the history of science that revealed our origins, and the creative detective work that climatologists, archaeologists, and geneticists use to dive into the deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
42min
February 04, 2025 Episode 5: Miracles of Resilience
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the fourth episode of our first season, Becoming Human, Professor Degroot explores how our hominin ancestors learned to cope with, and even exploit, the wildly fluctuating climate of the Pleistocene. He uses the extraordinary migration of a hominin species named Homo erectus to introduce the concept of resilience: a key but contested term that can help us understand our fate on a warming world.

The Climate Chronicles is really an audio book. The first season gives a unique overview not only of how climate change may have created our species, but also of the history of science that revealed our origins, and the creative detective work that climatologists, archaeologists, and geneticists use to dive into the deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
31min
January 28, 2025 Episode 4: The Precarious Pleistocene
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In the third episode of our first season, Becoming Human, Professor Degroot touches on everything from Noah's Flood to nuclear submarines in telling the strange, three-century-long history of the discovery of the Ice Age. Then, he explains why rapid climate changes of remarkable intensity threatened our ancestors in the world of the late Pleistocene Epoch.

The Climate Chronicles is really an audio book. The first season gives a unique overview not only of how climate change may have created our species, but also of the history of science that revealed our origins, and the creative detective work that climatologists, archaeologists, and geneticists use to dive into the deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
34min
January 21, 2025 Episode 3: The Great Cooling
Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

In our third episode, the second of our first season, Becoming Human, Professor Degroot takes listeners through the dramatic cooling of our planet that began some 45 million years ago. He explains how climate change influenced evolution - including the evolution of our distant ancestors in a drying Africa.

The Climate Chronicles is really an audio book. The first season gives a unique overview not only of how climate change may have created our species, but also of the history of science that revealed our origins, and the creative detective work that climatologists, archaeologists, and geneticists use to dive into the deep past.

For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.
...more
31min

FAQs about The Climate Chronicles:

How many episodes does The Climate Chronicles have?

The podcast currently has 12 episodes available.