This paper presents the first millennial-scale reconstruction of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 (~400 ka) from the subarctic Pacific Ocean. We use diatoms, calcareous nannofossils, grain size, and carbon and nitrogen isotopes to examine changing productivity and sea ice. These change in sync with other regional and global records. Initially, MIS 11 is highly productive, due to increased upwelling. Sea ice declines gradually during this warm period, but is present throughout.

Identification of Milankovitch cycles within the sedimentary record depends on spectral analyses, but these can be biased because there are always slight uncertainties in the sample position within a sedimentary column. Here, we simulate uncertainties in the sample position and show that a tight control on the inter-sample distance together with a density of 6–12 samples per precession cycle are needed to accurately reconstruct the contribution of the orbital forcing on past climate changes.

In this paper, we apply a new hydro-climatic reconstruction method on the Caniapiscau Reservoir (Canada), compare the obtained streamflow time series against time series derived from dendrohydrology by other authors on the same catchment, and study the natural streamflow variability over the 1881–2011 period. This new reconstruction is based on a historical reanalysis of global geopotential height fields and aims to produce daily streamflow time series (using a rainfall–runoff model).

For the past 2.7 million years the Earth's climate has switched more than 50 times between a cold glacial and warm interglacial state. We found the trend towards larger ice sheets over the past 2.7 million years was accompanied by changes in the style, frequency, and intensity of shorter-term (millennial) variability. We suggest the interaction between millennial climate change and longer-term variations in the Earth's orbit may be important for explaining the patterns of Quaternary climate.

We study the response of the glacial AMOC to different forcings in a coupled AOGCM. The depth of the upper overturning cell remains almost unchanged in response to the full glacial forcing. This is the result of two opposing effects: a deepening due to the ice sheets and a shoaling due to the low GHG concentrations. Increased brine release in the Southern Ocean is key to the shoaling. With glacial ice sheets, a shallower cell can be simulated with GHG concentrations below the glacial level.

This paper focuses on early Holocene rapid climate changes in the Mediterranean zone, which are under-represented in continental archives, and on their impact on prehistoric societies from the eastern to central Mediterranean (central Anatolia, Cyprus, NE and NW Greece). Our study demonstrates the reality of hydrogeomorphological responses to early Holocene RCCs in valleys and alluvial fans and lake–marsh systems. We finally question their socio-economic and geographical adaptation capacities.

This study presents a 414-year growing season minimum temperature reconstruction based on Korean pine tree-ring series at Laobai Mountain, northeast China. It developed a more than 400-year climate record in this area for the first time. This reconstruction showed six cold periods, seven warm periods, and natural disaster records of extreme climate events.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is linked to severe droughts and floods in mainland Southeast Asia. This research provides a more accurate and uniform picture of the spatio-temporal effects of ENSO on precipitation (1980–2013) and improves our understanding of long-term (1650–2004) ENSO teleconnection and its variability over the study area. The results reveal not only recognisable spatio-temporal patterns but also a high degree of variability and non-stationarity in the effects of ENSO.

Using climate model experiments, we investigate the causes of the Eemian (125 000 years ago) warming in Greenland. Sea ice loss and sea surface warming prolong the impact of the summer insolation increase, causing warming throughout the year. We find potential for ice sheet mass loss in the north and southwestern parts of Greenland. Our simulations indicate that the direct impact of the insolation, rather than the indirect effect of the warmer ocean, is the dominant cause of ice sheet melt.

Climate models forced only with greenhouse gas concentrations and orbital parameters representative of the early Last Interglacial are unable to reproduce the observed colder-than-present temperatures in the North Atlantic and the warmer-than-present temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere. Using a climate model forced also with a freshwater amount derived from data representing melting from the remnant Northern Hemisphere ice sheets accounts for this response via the bipolar seesaw mechanism.

The last lnterglacial (LIG; 116 000 to 129 000 years before present) surface temperature at the upstream Greenland NEEM deposition site is estimated to be warmer by +7 to +11 °C compared to the preindustrial period. We show that under such warm temperatures, melting of snow probably led to a significant surface melting. There is a paradox between the extent of the Greenland ice sheet during the LIG and the strong warming during this period that models cannot solve.