**1. Introduction**

More people appreciate the importance of global sustainability. This is evidenced by a growing number of quantitative studies investigating the connection between climate change and human societies. Given this background, the *Atmosphere* Special Issue "Climate Change, Climatic Extremes, and Human Societies in the Past" aims to highlight the major aspects of the climate–society nexus in ancient and recent human history. There are eight papers in this Special Issue based on quantitative approaches which illustrate different forms of the climate–society nexus in ancient (two papers), historical (three papers), and contemporary periods (three papers).

#### **2. Temporal Coverage of this Special Issue**
