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.