Ice cores reveal that atmospheric CO₂ concentration varied synchronously with the global ice volume. Explaining the mechanism of glacial–interglacial variations of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and the link between CO₂ and ice sheets evolution still remains a challenge. Here using the Earth system model of intermediate complexity we performed for the first time simulations of co-evolution of climate, ice sheets and carbon cycle using the astronomical forcing as the only external forcing.

Multi-proxy analyses (i.a., benthic foraminiferal assemblages and sedimentary properties) of a marine record from Woodfjorden at the northern Svalbard margin (Norwegian Arctic) illustrate a significant contribution of relatively warm Atlantic water to the destabilization of tidewater glaciers, especially during the deglaciation and early Holocene (until ~ 7800 years ago), whereas its influence on glacier activity has been fading during the last 2 millennia, enabling glacier readvances.

To understand how climate change will influence Australian rainfall we must first understand the long-term context of droughts and floods. We reconstruct warm and cool season rainfall in Australia's eight major climatic regions for several centuries into the past, building the clearest picture yet of long-term rainfall variability across the Australian continent. We find recent rainfall increases in the warm season in the north, and declines in the cool season in the south, to be highly unusual.

This research has been an investigation of two stalagmites from two caves in NW Madagascar to reconstruct the region's paleoenvironmental changes, and to understand the linkage of such changes to the dynamics of the ITCZ. Stable isotopes, mineralogy, and petrography suggest wetter climate conditions than today during the early and late Holocene, when the mean ITCZ was south, and drier during the mid-Holocene when the ITCZ was north.

We investigated a sediment core from the Maldives to unravel the interaction between equatorial climate and ocean variability of the past 200 000 years. The sedimentological, geochemical and foraminiferal data records reveal enhanced dust, which was transported by intensified winter monsoon winds during glacial conditions. Precessional fluctuations of bottom water oxygen suggests an expansion of the Arabian Sea OMZ and a varying inflow of Antarctic Intermediate Water.

We measured methane concentrations from a polar ice core to quantify the differences between the ice record and the past true atmospheric conditions. Two effects were investigated by combining data analysis and modeling: the stratification of polar snow before gas enclosure driving chronological hiatuses in the record and the gradual formation of bubbles in the ice attenuating fast atmospheric variations. This study will contribute to improving future climatic interpretations from ice archives.

Comparisons of proxy data to GCM-simulated hydroclimate are still limited and inter-model variability remains poorly characterized. In this study, we bring together tree-ring paleoclimate evidence and CMIP5–PMIP3 model simulations of the last millennium hydroclimate variability across Scandinavia. We explore the consistency between the datasets and the role of external forcing versus internal variability in driving the hydroclimate changes regionally.

Water availability is fundamental to societies and ecosystems, but our understanding of variations in hydroclimate (including extreme events, flooding, and decadal periods of drought) is limited due to a paucity of modern instrumental observations. We review how proxy records of past climate and climate model simulations can be used in tandem to understand hydroclimate variability over the last 2000 years and how these tools can also inform risk assessments of future hydroclimatic extremes.

Reconstructions of the last 2000-year climatic conditions along the Iberian Margin, a vulnerable region regarding current global warming, reveal a long-term cooling in sea surface temperature (SST) ending with the 19th century and centennial-scale variability that exposes warm SSTs throughout the first 1300 years followed by the colder Little Ice Age. The Industrial Era starts by 1800 CE, with an SST rise and a second increase in SST at ca. 1970 CE, particularly marked in the southern region.

We reconstructed the multi-proxy precipitation field for China over the past 500 years, which includes three leading modes (a monopole, a dipole, and a triple) of precipitation variability. The dipole mode may be controlled by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation variability. Such reconstruction is an essential source of information to document the climate variability over decadal to centennial timescales and can be used to assess the ability of climate models to simulate past climate change.