The breakdown of volcanic rocks by water helps balance the climate of the Earth by sequestering atmospheric CO₂. The rate of CO₂ sequestration is referred to as "weatherability". Our modelling study finds that continental position strongly impacts CO₂ concentrations, that runoff strongly controls weatherability, that changes in weatherability may explain long-term trends in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, and that even relatively localised changes in weatherability may have global impacts.

We analyzed a high-resolution marine sediment record from the Laptev Sea to reconstruct deglacial permafrost thaw events during the last 16 kyr. Using biomarkers and radiocarbon dating, we found that peaks in pre-aged terrigenous material coincided with rapid sea-level rise, indicating coastal erosion as the main mobilization mechanism. This research provides insights into past permafrost carbon release, informing predictions of future climate-permafrost feedback in a warming world.

Using model simulations and reconstructions over the last millennium, we identify distinct North Atlantic Oscillation-related winter climate responses following tropical versus extratropical eruptions, with improved model-data agreement in simulations that use the latest volcanic forcing. Our paleoclimate data–model comparison provides new evidence of volcanic climate impacts, which are strongly dependent on the choice of forcing dataset, model configuration, and eruption event selection.

We investigated sediments from the tropical Indian Ocean to study water column structure and carbon cycling during the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period, about 3 million years ago, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were similar to today. Our findings reveal persistent upper ocean stratification and niche separation among plankton groups, which limited nutrient mixing and carbon export to the deep ocean. These results highlight how ocean layering can influence climate feedback in a warmer world.

Using sediment samples from Cyprus, we investigated climate and ocean changes during the Miocene (~23–5 million years ago). Our new record reveals the effects of global climate changes, such as a warming event linked to high CO₂ levels. Later, tectonic events controlled eastern Mediterranean conditions by limiting connectivity with the open ocean. With the first record of its kind for this region, we show how climate and geological processes both affect oceans.

We generated high resolution geochemical records from well-preserved fossil corals of the penultimate glacial (~150 000 years ago) and last glacial (~30 000 years ago) periods drilled at Tahiti in the central tropical South Pacific. The fossil records revealed that the glacial mean seawater temperature was 3–4 °C lower and had greater seasonality than present. Our coral-based reconstructions document oceanographic and hydroclimatological changes in glacial periods extremely different from today.

Many climate archives record annual cyclicity, which can be counted to yield a very precise chronology. This process is often time-consuming and subjective, but despite automatic counting software packages existing, many researchers still count manually due to its technical simplicity. We present a new tool (CYCLIM) that combines the time saved from automation with the flexibility of expert judgement, and show it accurately detects cyclicity across three published palaeoclimate reconstructions.

We present a record of sea ice and climate inferred from novel snow petrel stomach oil deposits from East Antarctica. Snow petrels feed in the sea ice on a mixture of marine organisms and regurgitate these oils close to their nesting sites in nunatak mountains. We use makers of past diet and productivity from within a deposit to show how sea ice and climate has varied over part of the Holocene. Three periods are identified ranging from low to intermediate and increased sea ice cover.

This study explores storm patterns in eastern Canada's Magdalen Islands over 4000 years, using coastal peatlands to understand past storm activity. Our findings reveal key storm periods, including during the Little Ice Age, linked to broader climatic shifts like the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability. By comparing our results with other North American records, we show how peat data can complement other coastal storm archives and improve our understanding of past storms.

We use regional 2D seismic to reconstruct the Late Miocene to Pleistocene ice sheet history of the Northeast Greenland continental shelf. Regional borehole correlations show that the first ice stream advance across the shelf occurred around 6.4 Ma. Subsequently, a marked change in ice sheet configuration towards intensified cross-shelf ice streaming post-dates 4.1 Ma, possibly correlating to the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere glaciations.

In this study, we model vertical atmospheric gas diffusion in ice older than 1 million years in the Antarctic ice sheet. We estimate climate signal preservation and help identify a potential region for a future deep ice core in East Antarctica. We find that regions with low accumulation rates and moderate ice thickness result in lower diffusion rates. In particular, the foothills of Dome A is a promising location for a deep ice core that extends the present ice core record.

To test the tolerance of past shallow marine ecosystems to extreme climates, we collected and compiled stable and clumped isotope data from rudist (Order Hippuritida) bivalves that lived in tropical shallow marine waters in present-day Oman during the Campanian (75 million years ago). Our dataset shows that these animals were able to withstand exceptionally warm temperatures, exceeding 40 °C, during hot summers. Our finding highlights how seasonal climate extremes impact marine biodiversity.

We studied diatom fossils from the Southern Ocean to understand how ocean productivity changed ~40–30 million years ago during a major climate shift marked by the onset of permanent Antarctic glaciation and global cooling. We found striking shifts in diatom productivity, revealing critical changes in ocean circulation and nutrient supply. Our results show how these microscopic organisms may have influenced climate, acting as a geological force that shaped global climate over time.

This study aims to characterize the vegetation and lake dynamics based on pollen and Non-Pollen Palynomorph (NPP) proxies, to quantitatively reconstruct climate changes using a multimethod approach and to morphologically characterize the large pollen grains of Poaceae (Cerealia-type).

We studied climate change in the central Mediterranean during the Holocene by analysing 38 pollen records. Several methods were used to obtain reliable results on seasonal temperatures and precipitation. Our results show that, during the Holocene, summer temperatures were colder in the south and warmer in the north, with wetter winters and drier summers, especially in the south. Unlike winter conditions, summer ones did not follow variations in insolation, suggesting other factors.

We investigated retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation by dating glacial deposits exposed as the ice margin retreated. Our results from eastern and northeastern Greenland reveal ice margin retreat rates of 43 m/yr and 28 m/yr at two marine-terminating outlet glaciers. These retreat rates are consistent with late glacial and Holocene estimates across East Greenland, and are comparable to modern retreat rates observed in northeastern and northwestern Greenland.

This study uses an Earth System Model, MRI-ESM2.0, to demonstrate that the atmospheric ozone distribution during warm interglacial periods is modified by the changes in the Earth's orbital parameters. We further show that the change in atmospheric ozone works to cool the surface at the high-latitude regions of the northern hemisphere in the past warm interglacial periods (6 and 127 thousand years ago), while its impact is small around Antarctica.

Sea ice variability in the eastern Fram Strait between, and within, individual Greenland Stadials and Interstadials is documented by high-resolution proxy reconstructions. Unlike the southeastern Nordic Seas and North Atlantic, these changes were less linked to Greenland climate oscillations. Instead, they were driven by ocean heat transport, regulated by the interplay between the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation strength and sea ice cover in the southeastern Nordic Seas.

The Mediterranean faces more extreme weather. To understand these changes beyond short modern records, we studied Spanish pine tree rings, reconstructing over 500 years of rainfall. Our findings show that while past centuries had wet and dry periods, recent decades have experienced an unprecedented surge in both severe droughts and extreme wet events. This long-term view helps assess current climate shifts and their impact on ecosystems and water resources, highlighting the need for adaptation.

In this review article we present Svalbard’s unique geological archive, revealing its climate history over the last 540 million years. We uncover how this Arctic region recorded key global events, including the End-Permian Mass Extinction, and climate crises like the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. The overall climate trend recorded in sedimentary successions in Svalbard is discussed in the context of global climate fluctuations and continuous drift of Svalbard from near equatorial to Arctic latitudes.

In periods of high atmospheric CO₂ many proxies suggest more extreme past polar warming than is simulated by current coupled climate models. Providing new data on high latitude temperatures in the South Atlantic over the last 15 million years using clumped isotope thermometry, we show that absolute temperatures may not have been as warm as indicated by some biomarker based proxy climate records.

We reconstructed from sediments of different ocean sites phytoplankton carbon isotopic fractionation (ε_p), mainly linked to CO₂ variations, during the Oligocene to early Miocene. Data confirm Cenozoic long-term CO₂ record but show contrasting relationships with the sea surface temperatures evolution. We evaluate the role of non-CO₂ environmental factors such as temperature and nutrients at each site ε_p, highlighting the complexity of interpreting climate dynamics and CO₂ reconstructions.

Large-scale atmospheric pathways connecting climate across latitudes are poorly documented in the past. Using a high-resolution spatial and temporal reconstruction of the evolution of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies since the Last Glacial Maximum and comparing it with the evolution of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, we identified the dominant atmospheric pathways that shaped past South American climate.