Today's provocative transformation of the Earth's climate system provides timely scientific impetus to an array of paleolimnological studies aimed at understaning natural climate variability vs. anthropogenic-induced change on global and regional scales. Continental drilling to acquire long paleoclimate records from a strategic network of sites is essential to documenting regional hydrologic and climatic responses to atmospheric change, providing a record that is key to resolving climate dynamics at fine spatial scales relevant to both climate modeling and societal impacts of climate change. An in-depth scientific assessment of natural climate variability based on lake drilling will also allow us to close huge gaps in our knowledge on the impact of climate change on the continental landscape and its ecosystems, vegetation and other biota, and ultimately the human environment. The scientific returns from lake drilling include, e.g., data needed to assess the environmental context of early human evolution, knowledge of paleoseismicity, natural hazard frequency, paleohydrology, and drought. Core scanning technology and other emerging proxy developments continue to propel international standards for initial core processing and storage ensuring the maximum investment return on studies of past continental and environmental change.