We explain the procedure used to attain a high and consistent level of data stewardship across a special issue of the journal Climate of the Past. We discuss the challenges related to (1) determining which data are essential for public archival, (2) using data generated by others, and (3) understanding data citations. We anticipate that open-data sharing in paleo sciences will accelerate as the advantages become more evident and as practices that reduce data loss become the accepted convention.

Ice core dust size distributions are more often measured today by an Abakus laser sensor than by the more technically demanding but also very accurate Coulter counter. However, Abakus measurements consistently give larger particle sizes. We show here that this bias exists because the particles are flat and elongated. Correcting for this gives more accurate Abakus measurements. Furthermore, the shape of the particles can be extracted from a combination of Coulter counter and Abakus measurements.

The climate of the last glacial period was frequently interrupted by rapid warming events, the cause of which is still unknown. One open question is whether the occurrence of events is random or externally controlled. We studied the temporal characteristics of warm and cold phases using statistical null models and find that they are well described as random processes modulated by two different external climate factors. This may help distinguish physical mechanisms for rapid climate change.

This study presents organic acid levels in an ice core from Svalbard over the past 800 years. These acids are produced from wildfire emissions and transported as aerosol. Organic acid levels are high early in the record and decline until the 20th century. Siberia and Europe are likely the primary source regions of the fire emissions. The data are similar to those from a Siberian ice core prior to 1400 CE. The timing of the divergence after 1400 CE is similar to a shift in North Atlantic climate.

We have constructed a regional tree ring cellulose oxygen isotope record using a total of five chronologies obtained from the Himalaya. Centennial changes in the regional tree ring record indicate a trend of weakened Indian summer monsoon (ISM) intensity since 1820. Decreasing ISM activity is also observed in various high-resolution ISM records from southwest China and Southeast Asia, and may be the result of reduced land–ocean thermal contrasts since 1820.

A synthesis of 93 published records reveals that moisture availability increased over large portions of North America over the past 2000 years, the Common Era (CE). In many records, the second millennium CE tended to be wetter than the first millennium CE. The long-term changes formed the background for annual to multi-decade variations, such as "mega-droughts", and also provide a context for amplified rates of hydrologic change today.

Our results provide a proof of concept for facilitating ¹⁰Be in varved lake sediments as a novel synchronization tool required for investigating leads and lags of proxy responses to climate variability. They also point to some limitations of ¹⁰Be in these archives mainly connected to in-lake sediment resuspension processes.

The surface energy and mass balance of ice sheets strongly depends on surface albedo. Here, using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity, we explore the role played by surface albedo for the simulation of glacial cycles. We show that the evolution of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets over the last glacial cycle is very sensitive to the parameterization of snow grain size and the effect of dust deposition on snow albedo.