This research examines the climatic and societal impacts of volcanic eruptions in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE–8 CE). Statistically, the frequency of relevant climate disasters (e.g., drought, cold) and metrics of societal impacts (e.g., vagrancy) increased following volcanic eruptions. A comparative study of 180–150 BCE and 60–30 BCE reveals that the shortcomings in perceptions of human-nature relationships and the over-reliance on agriculture reduced society’s resilience to calamities.

Around 8200 years ago, Earth experienced an abrupt climate event when melting glaciers disrupted Atlantic Ocean circulation, triggering rapid global changes. Using statistical methods that account for dating uncertainties in ancient climate records, we find tropical rainfall patterns shifted dramatically for 150 years. The regional complexity of these changes, verified by model simulations, provides insights for understanding how similar ocean changes could impact rainfall in our warming world.

Our study evaluates models' ability to simulate Antarctic regional climate features by comparing available PMIP past1000 and the CESM-LME models to sets of Last Millennium Antarctic proxy-based reconstructions most relevant to the surface mass balance. We later look at their implications for 21st-century sea level rise. We show that no model performs equally well for all sets of variables, and the best-scoring model predicts a higher surface mass balance by 2100.

We present in this manuscript a record of temperature changes during the last deglaciation and the Holocene using isotopes of fluid inclusions in stalagmites from the northeastern region of the Iberian Peninsula. This innovative climate proxy for this study region provides a quantitative understanding of the abrupt temperature changes in southern Europe of the last 16500 years before present.

The strong ecosystem response to the Last Interglacial warming, reflected in the high diversity of proxies, shows the sensitivity of permafrost regions to rising temperatures. In particular, the development of thermokarst landscapes created a mosaic of terrestrial, wetland, and aquatic habitats, fostering an increase in biodiversity. This biodiversity is evident in the rich variety of terrestrial insects, vegetation, and aquatic invertebrates preserved in these deposits. 

Paleoclimate proxy records contain a combination of climate signals and non-climatic noise. This noise can affect year-to-year variations, or introduce uncertainty on medium and long timescales. Proxies contain different types, or "colors" of noise stemming from the diverse physical and biological processes that go into their creation. We show how non-climatic noise affects tree rings, corals and ice cores. We aim to improve representations of noise in paleoclimate research activities.

We present an unprecedented record of Indian summer monsoon (ISM)-induced vegetation changes for MIS 11, a key interglacial. Site U1446 pollen data and models show that ISM-vegetation shifts stem from an interplay of dominant forcings based on boundary conditions. Insolation is the main driver during MIS 11c interglacial conditions, akin to future scenarios, while ice volume and CO₂ prevail in the glacial inception. Superimposed changes are marked by prominent forest contractions and expansions.

Our study presents a statistical approach for identifying transitions between climate states in the Cenozoic Era. We analyze a temperature proxy record covering the period from 67.1 million years ago to present time. Our analysis corroborates the transitions previously identified in the literature and provides statistical justification for additional transitions. Our approach allows for constructing confidence intervals, offering measures of uncertainty.

In our study, we investigate what changes in environment and climate occured during post-Holsteinian period in Krępa palaeolake in Eastern Poland. In order to achieve this goal we reconstructed summer temperature at that time with the use of Chironomidae larvae head capsules. This is first research from Central Europe in which we use chironomids to trace climate change through pre-Holocenian period. We hope to encourage scientific community to carry out further research in the region.

Public granaries served as key infrastructures to improve food security in agrarian societies. The granary data from 15 domains at the Sušice region (southwestern Bohemia) in the period 1789–1849 CE were used to identify years with bad and good grain harvests, which have been further confronted with documentary data and climatic reconstructions. Data used represent the new source of proxy data for historical-climatological research.

Our study investigates the influence of oceanic changes on regional hydroclimate (precipitation and temperature) patterns, in Europe and North America during the Medieval Climate Anomaly period. Our findings suggest that centennial-scale variations in terrestrial thermodynamics, sea surface temperatures, and shifts in the Intertropical Convergence Zone likely played a role in shaping regional hydroclimate patterns. Our outcomes will offer insights into how hydroclimate may evolve in the future.

New bottom water [CO₃^2-] reconstructions show higher levels in the deep Norwegian Sea during MIS 5 and 4 than during the Holocene. This suggests modern-like/persistent deep-water formation in this region, even when Atlantic overturning weakened and/or shoaled. Our data puts new constraints on the endmember [CO₃^2-] composition of northern component-waters emerging from the Nordic Seas, with implications for the chemical characteristics and carbon storage capacity of the Atlantic Ocean.

This study aims to determine the nature of the climate in Labrador in historical times (late 18th century), which is crucial to understanding past climate changes in the Arctic and their causes. It is equally important to estimate the range of natural climate variability, which can help in correctly recognising the causes of present and future climate changes – especially the influence of man on climate. The analysis shows a significant warming from historical to present times.

Our research explores climatic changes during the Early-Middle Pleistocene (1006–750 kilo years) on the southern Portuguese margin. We found that warm, subtropical gyre related conditions dominated. However, those conditions were occasionally interrupted by extreme cold events during the glacial periods. Our data shows that these cold events, linked to changes in the North Atlantic’s circulation, reached as far south as 36° N and significantly impacting marine ecosystems in the surface ocean.

We identify two tephra horizons in the Mount Brown South (MBS) ice core originating from the mid-1980s eruptive period of Mt. Erebus and the 1991 eruption of Cerro Hudson. They represent an important addition to East Antarctic tephrochronology, with implications for understanding atmospheric dynamics and ice core chronologies. This work underpins the importance of the MBS ice core as a new tephrochronological archive in an underrepresented region of coastal East Antarctica.

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. Records confirm long-term trends but show contrasting relationships with the sea surface temperatures evolution. We evaluate the role of non-CO₂ physiological factors such as temperature and nutrients at each site ε_p, highlighting the complexity of interpreting climate dynamics and CO₂ reconstructions.

Torrential rains in the Eastern Atlantic during 1768–1769 caused the worst agricultural crisis in Galicia and Northern Portugal. Using the EKF400v2 paleo-reanalysis dataset, it was found that the rainfall anomaly was positive in 11 out of 12 months. June 1768 saw the highest positive rain anomaly of the century, and September 1768 the second-highest. The atmospheric synoptic patterns show negative anomalies in sea level pressure and 500 hPa. These patterns induce surface low-pressure systems.

The precession driven low-latitude hydrological cycle is not paced by hemispheric summer insolation, but shifting perihelion.

El Niño events are the main driver of year-to-year tropical climate variability. Understanding how El Niño activity is affected by different climate states is of great relevance to socioeconomic, ecosystem and climate risk management. Through analysis of past and future climate simulations, we show that ENSO sensitivity to mean state changes is more complex than previously thought, exhibiting a nonlinear behavior.

Using a carbon cycle model I here show that the 405-kyr periodicity found in marine δ¹³C during the last 5 million years and the offset in atmospheric δ¹³CO₂ between the last and the penultimate glacial maximum are probably related to each other. They can be explained by variations in the δ¹³C signature of weathered carbonate rock or of volcanically degassed CO₂ which vary mainly with obliquity (41-kyr) suggesting that northern hemispheric land ice sheets are their ultimate drivers.