The paper shows that historical records of wine yield and quality from Central Europe (1416–1988) can be combined into a Yield Quality Index (YQI). This index serves as a reliable indicator of climate conditions from May to July. Using long-term tax, tithe, and estate records from the Moselle region in Germany and the Swiss Plateau, the study shows that high YQI values correspond to warm summers, early harvests, and supportive tree-ring evidence. Conversely, low values often reflect cold summers or frost damage. These results confirm that wine production data can significantly improve climate reconstructions and help explain the social and economic impacts of past climate extremes.

This study uses historical weather observations rescued from across Europe, as well as machine learning techniques to improve our understanding of a series of heatwaves in 1806. The results indicate that while machine learning models can do a good job of reproducing historical weather observations, they can't capture the physics behind why a heatwave would occur.

The present manuscript submitted by Gali et al. to Climate of the Past, 'Historical droughts in british Colonial Belize (1771-1981)', is a publication which has been subject to comprehensive research, and it is anticipated that it will appeal to scientists across a range of disciplines. The region in which the work is conducted is significantly under-represented in the current literature, and this paper constitutes an excellent contribution to both the scientific community and our regional understanding of climate.

The paper presents a state-of-the-are Holocene reconstruction of North American vegetation shifts, including a discussion of drivers and potential feedbacks on climate.

Stevenard et al. present the first compilation of SST records covering the period 350 to 300 ka, encompassing Termination IV and the subsequent interglacial (Marine isotope stage, MIS, 9e). They show that surface temperatures rose by ~5.7 °C during Termination IV, comparable to the estimated warming of Terminations I and II. Their results further suggest that globally averaged SST during MIS9e were similar to the pre-industrial. This reflects a highly spatially heterogeneous interglacial optimum, likely influenced by variations in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

These data are unique to Greenland, particularly from the base of the Camp Century ice core. These data, which show several periods of glaciation and non-glaciation in northwest Greenland prior to the formation of the current ice cap, should be of great interest to the paleo community, from paleoecologists to modelers.

This Milankovic Medalist paper represents a tour de force, addressing a complex yet crucial question: the evolution of global climate over the past 4.5 million years. This paper makes a significant contribution to the geoscience community by providing a self-consistent decomposition of global mean benthic δ18O into its temperature and seawater (ice volume) components. This approach is consistent with independent estimates of global mean sea surface temperature (GMSST) and sea level constraints.The analysis incorporates numerous high-resolution records spanning this period and highlights two distinct climatic regimes: • Before 1.5 million years ago, a warm period characterized by smaller-amplitude ice sheet and sea level cycles, primarily driven by obliquity timescales. • Following the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), i.e. after 1 million years, a well-documented increase in the amplitude of glacial cycles became evident. The central finding of the study is that, during the MPT, there was a shift in ocean heat storage efficiency (HSE). Prior to this transition, HSE remained low and constant, whereas after the MPT, it doubled and stabilized at a higher value. This finding is supported by the observation of subtle differential changes in global mean SST and mean ocean temperature (MOT), which appear to be time-dependent. These observations suggest a potential fundamental shift in oceanic heat storage dynamics.

This manuscript deserves to be highlighted as it presents an incredible dataset, analysed using state-of-the-art techniques and summarised in a clear and readable form. As the reviewers pointed out, the content could easily have resulted in two articles (or even more...) - a practice that is sometimes done to increase ‘academic output’. However, the authors have chosen to provide a comprehensive overview and interpretation of the results. In addition, the site studied is of great importance for Icelandic studies of Holocene climate change.

This study employs novel methods to evaluate wildfire activity in southern Siberia during past warm periods, exploring its connections to vegetation and climate. The findings reveal that fire activity was more pronounced during the Last Interglacial than in the Holocene, driven by warmer summers and the prevalence of open forests. These results underscore the compounded influence of both vegetation changes and climate shifts on wildfire activity.

Understanding the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet during the Pliocene has important implications to future Antarctic ice sheet changes and sea level. However, changes in the eastern Antarctic ice sheet are still largely unknown. This work may provide key geological evidence to fill in this knowledge gap.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is at its weakest of the last millennium and is projected to further weaken over the coming decades, with the risk of a collapse over the coming century non negligible. The geologic record provides examples of rapid and large AMOC variations, with phases of AMOC weakening, preceding an AMOC shutdown. One key question is whether CO2-driven AMOC weakening is reversible, or whether it represents a tipping point, which might lead to an AMOC collapse. The study by Willeit et al. offers a new diagnostic that is simple to implement and allows for comparing AMOC stability between different models, as well as different time periods. This offers a powerful new tool in understanding the conditions for AMOC stability, and thus the AMOC future.

This paper is an excellent example of how sophisticated climate reconstructions can be made on the basis of historical documentary data. The authors have not only succeeded in analysing the rich historical descriptions in a very valuable way, they have also applied various statistical approaches very skillfully in a remarkably interdisciplinary approach. The article stands out for its deep understanding of historical sources, drought processes, and various social processes.

This study presents an interesting attempt to reconstruct global surface temperature by combining sparse SST proxy data and PlioMIP2 simulations using a state-of-the-art data assimilation framework. The work highlights the potential of this method for providing key insights into past warming patterns, and will serve as a good starting point for future investigations.

Romero et al. mapped geomorphological features on the landscape and dated moraine boulders and outwash sediments to constrain past changes of the former Patagonian Ice Sheet in southern Argentina. They show that the Lago Argentino glacier expanded during Marine Isotope Stage 6 (153.0±14.7 ka) and during Marine Isotope Stage 3, culminating at 44.5±8.0 ka and at 36.6±1.0 ka, thus preceding the Last Glacial Maximum. They hypothesize that this was a result of longer and colder winters, as well as increased precipitation resulting from an equatorward shift of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies.

The paper entitled "Continuous synchronization of the Greenland ice-core and U-Th timescales using probabilistic inversion" presents a first and new continuously measured transfer function that quantifies the age difference between the GICC05 and the U-Th timescale during the last ice age. The transfer function was estimated using a new automated algorithm for proxy data alignment. The approach was the subject of much discussion with the various referees who evaluated it, but it is at least described clearly enough for the community to form its own opinion and henceforth use it.

This is a very interesting proxy development based on grape production. So far, grape harvest dates (ghd) are well-known proxies of past temperatures from April to July that can generate very accurate and fascinating time series (see Labbé et al. 2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-1485-2019). However, the analysis of wine must has not yet been considered, although the present manuscript shows that it is a highly potential climate proxy when other related information is missing. This study opens the door to exciting future studies

This article presents an interesting link between climate and weather patterns, and in particular how this may have impacted recent human history.

This paper presents the first gridded reconstruction of the summer (June, July, and August) vapor pressure deficit (VPD) for the past four centuries at the European level. The reconstruction shows that from the mid-1700s, a trend towards higher summer VPD occurred in Central Europe and the Mediterranean region, a trend that has continued through the observational period. The reconstruction is based on 26 European tree-ring oxygen isotope records .

The paper submitted by Meister and colleagues presents the first comprehensive compilation and assessment of diatom oxygen isotope records in lake sediments (δ18OBSi). The authors have supplemented these data with additional lake basin parameters (such as catchment size and residence times). The manuscript first infers the spatial and temporal coverage of δ18OBSi records and then discusses common hemispheric trends on centennial and millennial time scales, with key results such as: - Common patterns for hydrologically open lakes in extra-tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. - Common trends during the Common Era and throughout the Holocene corresponding to known climatic epochs such as the Holocene Thermal Maximum, Neoglacial cooling, the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. This is a well-written manuscript that should make a valuable contribution to reconstructions of past climates.

Reconstructing large-scale climate patterns from sparse local records is crucial for understanding past climates. Yet, it remains challenging to derive those reconstructions due to the patchiness, uneven spatial distribution, and disparate nature of palaeoclimatic proxy records. In this study, Eichenseer and Jones developed a Bayesian hierarchical model to integrate ecological data with established geochemical proxies into a unified quantitative framework, which bridges the gap in the latitudinal coverage of proxy data. They showed that this framework has the potential to enhance quantitative palaeoclimatic reconstructions especially the latitudinal temperature gradient estimated from datasets with limited spatial sampling.

The Generalized Milankovitch Theory (GMT) presented and discussed in this paper provides a new view on the long-standing problem raised by the Milankovitch theory of glacial-interglacial cycles. The GMT is based on a deep insight into theory, data, and numerical modeling. It condensates the profound knowledge into a fascinatingly elegant dynamic systems theory.

The manuscript by Skinner et al. presents a unique and useful data compilation of ocean-atmosphere radiocarbon age offset (B-Atm) across the last deglaciation. The presented global average B-Atm represents a new benchmark for modelling studies seeking to constrain the ocean's role in past atmospheric CO2 change, and seeking closure of the global radiocarbon cycle. The latter is important for constraining the carbon cycle evolution over the last deglaciation (which remains to be quantitatively accounted for), as well as the history of the geodynamo and solar activity.

This paper presents two new long-term SST records from the south Atlantic Ocean. This region is marked by the strong ocean baroclinicity and associated SST gradient, and is key to understanding late Cenozoic Antarctic glaciation and deep ocean circulation. These records have the potential to significantly contribute to address those questions.