Climate is certainly not the only factor influencing human civilisation (and the development of ancient ports) but it is probably a major one.
A first (simplistic?) approach would be to state that a stable and mild climate favours human civilisation as it allows farming. A warmer or a colder climate reduces the development of human civilisation as it induces droughts leading to famine and migration of peoples, yielding unstability and war. In this process, civilisations may be submerged by others who will emerge as leaders. Civilisations may die and others be born due to climate change.
It is not our intention to provide complete information about the vast subject of paleoclimatology, but some synthetising seems to be required here in relation to historical events.
This chapter deals with the following aspects:
Design waves for marine structures are considered in another chapter.
 ROUTSON, C., et al., 2019, “Mid-latitude net precipitation decreased with Arctic warming during the Holocene“, Nature, Volume 568, Issue 7750, (p 83-87).
Acc. to Routson (2019) “The Arctic has warmed more than low latitudes naturally in the past […] resulting in smaller temperature differences between the Equator and the pole, the jet stream gets weaker and less precipitation falls in the mid-latitudes” because of “reduced baroclinic potential energy that fuels storm systems, reducing mid-latitude cyclone frequency and intensity”.
See also: Northern Arizona University News.