The timing and role in ocean circulation and climate of the opening of Southern Ocean gateways is as yet elusive. Here, we present the first model results specific to the early-to-middle Eocene where, in agreement with the field evidence, a southerly shallow opening of the Tasman Gateway does indeed cause a westward flow across the Tasman Gateway, in agreement with recent micropalaeontological studies.

We show that seawater pH exerts a substantial control on planktic foraminifera Mg / Ca, a widely applied palaeothermometer. As a result, temperature reconstructions based on this proxy are likely inaccurate over climatic events associated with a significant change in pH. We examine the implications of our findings for hydrological and temperature shifts over the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and for the degree of surface ocean precursor cooling before the Eocene-Oligocene transition.

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a brief period when the Earth was in an extreme greenhouse state. We use neodymium isotopes to suggest that during this time deep-ocean circulation was distinct in each basin (North and South Atlanic, Southern, Pacific) with little exchange between. Moreover, the Pacific data show the most variability, suggesting this was a critical region possibly involved in both PETM triggering and remediation.

We present a high-resolution multi-proxy study about the evolution of sea surface conditions along the last 2700 yr in the north-western Mediterranean Sea based on five sediment records from two different sites north of Minorca. The novelty of the results and the followed approach, constructing stack records from the studied proxies to preserve the most robust patterns, provides a special value to the study. This complex period appears to have significant regional changes in the climatic signal.

The upper part of stalagmite ky1 (from top to 42.769 mm depth), consisting of 678 laminae, was collected from a cave in northern China, located in the East Asia monsoon area. The time of deposition ranges from AD 1217±20 to 1894±20. The analysis shows that both the variations in the thickness of the laminae themselves and the fluctuating degree of variation in the thickness of the laminae of stalagmite ky1 have obviously staged characteristics and synchronized with climate.

In this paper we present records of stable C and O isotopes, CaCO₃ content, and changes in calcareous nannofossil assemblages in a upper Paleocene-lower Eocene rocks now exposed in northeast Italy. Modifications of nannoplankton assemblages and carbon isotopes are strictly linked one to each other and always display the same ranking and spacing. The integration of this two data sets represents a significative improvement in our capacity to correlate different sections at a very high resolution.

This review/position paper addresses problems in creating new interdisciplinary databases for palaeo-climatological sea-level and ice-sheet data and gives an overview on new advances to tackle them. The focus therein is to define and explain strategies and highlight their importance to allow further progress in these fields. It also offers important insights into the general problem of designing competitive databases which are also applicable to other communities within the palaeo-environment.

We used climate modelling to estimate the biogeophysical impacts of agriculture on the climate over the last 8000 years of the Holocene. Our results show statistically significant surface temperature changes (mainly cooling) from as early as 7000 BP in the JJA season and throughout the entire annual cycle by 2–3000 BP. The changes were greatest in the areas of land use change but were also seen in other areas. Precipitation was also affected, particularly in Europe, India, and the ITCZ region.

Geological evidence for past changes in glacier length provides a useful source of information about pre-historic climate change. We have used glacier modelling to show that air temperature reductions of −5 to −7 °C, relative to present, are required to simulate the glacial extent in the North Island, New Zealand, during the last ice age (approx. 20000 years ago). Our results provide data to assess climate model simulations, with the aim of determining the drivers of past natural climate change.

Volcanic forcing is the most important source of forced variability during the preindustrial component of the last millennium (~ 850-1850 CE) and is important during the last century.

Here, we focus on the climate impact over South America in a model-based study. Emphasis is given to temperature, precipitation, and oxygen isotope variability (allowing for potential contact made with paleoclimate-based observations)

The symbiont-bearing planktic foraminiferal genera Morozovella and Acarinina were among the most important calcifiers of the early Paleogene tropical and subtropical oceans. However, a remarkable and permanent switch in the relative abundance of these genera happened in the early Eocene. We show that this switch occurred at low-latitude sites near the start of the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO), a multi-million-year interval when Earth surface temperatures reached their Cenozoic maximum.

We demonstrate for the first time the direct link between dust accumulation in marine sediment cores and Saharan land surface by simulating the mid-Holocene and pre-industrial dust cycle as a function of Saharan land surface cover and atmosphere-ocean conditions using the coupled atmosphere-aerosol model ECHAM6-HAM2.1. Mid-Holocene surface characteristics, including vegetation cover and lake surface area, are derived from proxy data and simulations.

The present study is related the climate changes and their environmental impacts during the last 6 ky from a fossil record collected in the Middle Atlas, Morocco. We used the reconstruction of three climate variables and geo-chemical elements to evaluate the relationships between all the environmental variables. In summary, this present study confirms the overall climate stability over the last 6 ky and highlights the presence of a short and abrupt climate event at about 5.2 ka cal BP.

This paper presents the first late Pliocene high-resolution pollen record for the Norwegian Arctic, covering the time period 3.60 to 3.14 million years ago (Ma). The climate of the late Pliocene has been widely regarded as relatively stable. Our results suggest a high climate variability with alternating cool temperate forests during warmer-than-presen periods and boreal forests similar to today during cooler intervals. A spread of peatlands at the expense of forest indicates long-term cooling.

Local artifacts in ice core methane data are superimposed on consistent records of past atmospheric variability. These artifacts are not related to past atmospheric history and care should be taken to avoid interpreting them as such. By investigating five polar ice cores from sites with different conditions, we relate isolated methane spikes to melt layers and decimetre-scale variations as "trapping signal" associated with a difference in timing of air bubble closure in adjacent firn layers.

This study presents an average of seven Late Pleistocene sea level records, which improves the signal-to-noise ratio for estimates of sea level change during glacial cycles of the past 800 000 years.

The lack of accepted data formats and data standards in paleoclimatology is a growing problem that slows progress in the field. Here, we propose a preliminary data standard for paleoclimate data, general enough to accommodate all the proxy and measurement types encountered in a large international collaboration (PAGES 2k). We also introduce a data format for such structured data (Linked Paleo Data, or LiPD), leveraging recent advances in knowledge representation (Linked Open Data).