The spring onset and growing season dynamics during the Late Glacial period in the Baltic region were reconstructed using the micro-phenology based on dwarf birch subfossil leaf cuticles. The comparison of pollen- and chironomid-inferred past temperature estimations with spring onset, growth degree day, and plant macrofossil data shows coherent patterns during the cooler Older Dryas and warmer Bølling–Allerød periods but more complicated climate dynamics during the Younger Dryas cold reversal.

The high-quality pollen records (collected from lakes and peat bogs) of the last 40 ka cal BP form north Asia are homogenized and the plant abundance signals are calibrated by the modern relative pollen productivity estimates. Calibrated plant abundances for each site are generally consistent with in situ modern vegetation, and vegetation changes within the regions are characterized by minor changes in the abundance of major taxa rather than by invasions of new taxa during the last 40 ka cal BP.

Here we reconstruct vegetation and precipitation, in eastern South Africa, over the last 32 000 years, by measuring the stable carbon and hydrogen isotope composition of plant waxes from Mfabeni peat bog (KwaZulu-Natal). Our results indicate that the late Quaternary climate in eastern South Africa did not respond directly to orbital forcing or to changes in sea-surface temperatures. Our findings stress the influence of the Southern Hemisphere westerlies in driving climate change in the region.

Results from Lago Edita, central-western Patagonia (47° S), allow examination of the timing and direction of paleoclimate signals during the last glacial termination (T1) in southern midlatitudes. Cold and wet conditions prevailed during T1, terminated by warm pulses at 13 000 and 11 000 yr BP. Delayed warming, relative to sites along the Pacific coast, raises the possibility that residual ice masses in the Andes induced regional cooling along downwind sectors of central Patagonia during T1.

The use of stalagmites for last interglacial continental climate reconstructions in Europe has been successful in the past; however to expand the geographical coverage, additional data from Belgium is presented. It has been shown that stalagmite growth, morphology and stable isotope content reflect regional and local climate conditions, with Eemian optimum climate occurring between 125.3 and 117.3 ka. The start the Weichselian is expressed by a stop of growth caused by a drying climate.