This study presents the results of a detailed paleoclimate investigation on stalagmite YL-1 (Yelini Cave, Türkiye). YL-1 grew between 117.13 (+0.57/−0.44) ka and 114.87 (+1.63/−2.89) ka within Greenland Stadial 26, indicating a positive moisture balance during the stadial conditions in this semi-arid region. Rainfall is significantly affected by sub-cloud and surface evaporation and decreasing net effective winter precipitation is recorded by high isotope values. Enriched δ18O and δ13C at 116.65 (+0.51/−0.39) ka are interpreted as a drought event that took place ca. 400 years before the end of the MIS 5e. This event, which was reported simultaneously in marine and terrestrial archives in the Northern Hemisphere, is a result of decreased cyclone activity linked to weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. 87Sr/86Sr values of YL-1 are close to the host-rock values. Decreased 87Sr/86Sr ratio at 116.67 (+0.54/−0.38) ka reflects the intensified water–rock interaction due to lower precipitation. Along with prior calcite precipitation effect, this is also observed by increased Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca, while low P, Cu, Be, Y, and Zr concentrations indicate a lowered amount of soil-derived colloidal material. The MIS 5e/5d transition is marked by reduced insolation and enriched δ18O at 116.24 (+0.53/−0.86) ka. The Greenland Interstadial 25 phase at 115.87 (+0.83/−1.71) ka is represented by more negative δ18O and δ13C.

Our climate future depends on the delicate, fine balance of earth processes first elaborated on by James Croll, born 200 years ago in 1821. A childhood victim of the Scottish clearances, Croll, after following various indifferent occupations, managed to remove to the then rapidly industrialising city of Glasgow and eventually to Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. He blossomed as a most original, outside-the-box, thinker of great intellectual strength and modesty. He carried out scores of studies across a broad range of research topics, many related to the physical causes of climate change. He is well known for his astronomical theory of the ice ages, but should be much better regarded for his incisive physical insights into the central importance of feedbacks in the Earth system. Although humble, Croll was an ardent controversialist who strongly, perhaps over-strongly, always defended his corner. As well as his many accomplishments as a man of science, Croll was committed to exploring philosophical questions of theism and determinism, topics which occupied his earliest and last publications. A ‘top ten’ selection out of the varied subject areas that Croll tackled are explored herein, along with a brisk survey of their legacy to contemporary modelling studies and to Earth's climate future: (1) causes of climate change (1864); (2) ice-cap melt and sea-level rise (1865); (3) predicting future climates using eccentricity (1866); (4) combining orbital precession, eccentricity and obliquity (1867); (5) geological time and the date of the glacial epochs (1868); (6) geological time and denudation rates (1868); (7) ocean currents and the hemispherical temperature difference (1869); (8) feedbacks – a remarkable circumstance which led to changes of climate (1875); (9) temperature of space and its bearing on terrestrial physics (1880); (10) the causes of mild polar climates (1884).

Limited numbers of high-resolution records predate the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) making it difficult to quantify the impacts of environmental changes prior to peak glaciation. We examined sediments from Last Canyon Cave in the Pryor Mountains of Montana and Wyoming to construct a >45 ka environmental record from pollen and stable isotope analysis. Artemisia pollen was hyper-abundant at the beginning of the record. Carbon isotope values of bulk organic matter (>40 ka) showed little variation (-25.3 ± 0.4‰) and were consistent with a arid C3 environment, similar to today. After 40 cal ka BP, Artemisia pollen decreased as herbaceous taxa increased toward the LGM. A significant decrease in δ13C values from 40–30 cal ka BP (~1.0‰) established a new baseline (-26.6 ± 0.2‰), suggesting cooler, seasonally wetter conditions prior to the LGM. These conditions persisted until variation in δ13C values increased significantly with post-glacial warming, marked by two spikes in values at 14.4 (-25.2‰) and 13.5 cal ka BP (-25.4‰) before δ13C values dropped to their lowest values (-26.9 ± 0.2‰) at the onset of the Younger Dryas (12.8 ka). These results provide insights into late Pleistocene conditions and ecological change in arid intermontane basins of the Rocky Mountains.

On 26 June 2018 Waldo Heliodoor Zagwijn died at the age of 89. He was an Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. As a geologist, palynologist and palaeobotanist he focused on developing a stratigraphy of the Netherlands based on changes in vegetation and climate. The Dutch setting of a subsiding basin, and the clear signal of a sequence of glacial–interglacial cycles, was promising. As early as the late 1950s it became clear that the Quaternary Period included more than the previously assumed four ice ages in the Netherlands. In his PhD thesis Zagwijn defined the start of the Quaternary around 2.5 million years before the present (2.5 Ma). The international community accepted Zagwijn’s arguments after he retired. He showed how the rivers Meuse, Scheldt and Rhine had built the Netherlands in four dimensions. He is the instigator and architect of the climate- and chronostratigraphy of the Quaternary Period of Western Europe.

The Chaudière River region in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Canada is approximately 700 km north of the southernmost Pleistocene glacial deposits in New York and New Jersey. Detailed compositional analyses of glacial and non-glacial sediments from stratigraphic exposures and more than 40 boreholes drilled to bedrock provide a compositionally constrained record of glacial events, which include deposits of one Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 and two post-MIS 5 glaciations. The glacial and associated proglacial deposits rest on compositionally distinctive, preglacial saprolite that is preserved in deeper valleys. These observations constrain interpretations of the glacial/Pleistocene history of the eastern United States and Canada. The fact that there is no unequivocal evidence of pre-MIS 6 till in the Chaudière River region, while there are well-documented pre-MIS 6 glacial deposits south of there and in the American Midwest, also has major climatic implications. The Laurentide Ice Sheet and its ancestors must have been more robust in the west in the early Pleistocene and in the east most recently.

The climatic history of the Dead Sea region during the Pliocene and its global connection are observed from climate-sensitive rocks and clay minerals of the Sedom formation. The Sedom formation consists of evaporative halitic rock salt units and calcareous shale units that were deposited in the Dead Sea Basin during the Pliocene. The precipitation of the rock salts took place in the hypersaline sabkha environment of the Sedom Lagoon. The extensive evaporative conditions are related to an extremely dry and warm arid climate at that time. In the arid climate, the influx of meteoric water by the drainage system of the Sedom Lagoon was limited and permitted a large concentration of lagoonal brine as well as a small rate of detritus transportation to the lagoon. Accessory sepiolite found in the rock salt appears to be neoformed from brine enriched with Mg and poor in Al under the extreme salinity condition. The small amounts of Al are in accordance with the small number of detrital minerals in the rock salts. The replacement in the deposition of the rock salt members with the calcareous shale members demonstrates a decrease in the salinity of the brine in the Sedom Basin and an increase in the deposition of detritus. The change in conditions was related to a period of deposition under a more humid climate where the erosion and the transport of detritus by the drainage system to the Sedom Basin was higher, causing the deposition of calcareous shales. Palygorskite found in the calcareous shales appears to be neoformed from brine enriched with Mg and containing Al in conditions of reduced salinity of the Sedom Basin. The larger amounts of Al are in accordance with the abundance of detrital minerals in the calcareous shales.

The depositional cycles of the Sedom formation, the cyclic fluctuation of the climatic-hydrologic conditions from an arid to a more humid climate and their correlation with sea-level fluctuations and transgression-regression cycles of the Mediterranean Sea seem to be a response to corresponding global interglacial and glacial periods during the Pliocene.

The drilled Inter-Continental Drilling Project core at the deeps of the Dead Sea reveals thick sequences of halite deposits from the last interglacial period, reflecting prevailing arid conditions in the lake’s watershed. Here, we examine sequences of intercalating evaporates (halite or gypsum) and fine-detritus laminae and apply petrographic, micro-X-ray fluorescence, and statistical tools to establish in high-temporal resolution the hydroclimatic controls on the sedimentation in the last interglacial Dead Sea. The time series of the thickness of the best-recovered core sections of the layered halite, detritus, and gypsum reveals periodicities of ~11, 7–8, and 4–5 yr, pointing to a North Atlantic control and possibly solar influence on the hydrology of the Dead Sea watershed during the regionally arid period of the last interglacial period. Similar periodicities were detected in the last glacial and modern sedimentary sequences of the Dead Sea and other archives of the central Levant, indicating a persistent impact of the solar cycles on regional hydrology, possibly through the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Recent explorations in Cueva Charles Brewer, a large cave in a sandstone tepui, SE Venezuela, have revealed silica biospeleothems of unprecedented size and diversity. Study of one — a sub-spherical mass of opaline silica — reveals a complex, laminated internal structure consisting of three narrow dark bands alternating with two wider light bands. Uranium–thorium dating has produced 3 stratigraphically correct dates on the light bands from 298 ± 6 (MIS 9) to 390 ± 33 ka (MIS 11). U concentration is only 30–110 ppb. Initial 234U/238U ratios are high and increase over time from 1.8 to 5.3. Growth rate is very low, the fastest, at 0.37 ± 0.23 mm/ka, in MIS 9. Trace element and heavy metal content of the dark bands is distinctly higher than that of the light bands. It is hypothesized that the dark and light bands correlate with drier/glacial and wetter/interglacial periods, respectively, and that this sample probably began to grow in MIS 13. The cave is in a region that straddles a regionally important ecotone: the speleothem isotopic and trace element variations may preserve a useful paleoclimatic signal. This is the first published suite of U–Th dates from a single silica speleothem and the longest Quaternary record for this region.

The Fernbank interglacial site, on the west side of Cayuga Lake, New York, has been recently subjected to more detailed study. To a lengthened mollusc list are added ostracodes, insects, fish, pollen, and plant macrofossils. Of these, plants are well preserved and diverse, whereas other groups are poorly preserved and incomplete. Nevertheless, all support the interglacial assignment (Sangamon), which is further supported by minimum age radiocarbon dates (>50,000 14C yr BP) and a TL date of 81 ± 11 ka. In the plant record near the top of the sequence, abundant tree charcoal indicates forest fires. Like the Toronto interglacial record, the plants show a declining July mean temperature from 24 to 18°C (according to transfer functions) through the sequence, from mixed deciduous forest to boreal forest.

The Palisades Site is an extensive silt-loam bluff complex on the central Yukon River preserving a nearly continuous record of the last 2 myr. Volcanic ash deposits present include the Old Crow (OCt; 140,000 yr), Sheep Creek (SCt; 190,000 yr), PA (2.02 myr), EC (ca. 2 myr), and Mining Camp (ca. 2 myr) tephras. Two new tephras, PAL and PAU, are geochemically similar to the PA and EC tephras and appear to be comagmatic. The PA tephra occurs in ice-wedge casts and solifluction deposits, marking the oldest occurrence of permafrost in central Alaska. Three buried forest horizons are present in association with dated tephras. The uppermost forest bed occurs immediately above the OCt; the middle forest horizon occurs below the SCt. The lowest forest bed occurs between the EC and the PA tephras, and correlates with the Dawson Cut Forest Bed. Plant taxa in all three peats are common elements of moist taiga forest found in lowlands of central Alaska today. Large mammal fossils are all from common late Pleistocene taxa. Those recovered in situ came from a single horizon radiocarbon dated to ca. 27,000 14C yr B.P. The incongruous small mammal assemblage in that horizon reflects a diverse landscape with both wet and mesic environments.

Assemblages of fossil coleoptera (beetles) have been obtained from eight sites in southern England that date from the early phase (Pinus — Quercetum mixtum — Corylus pollen assemblage zone) of the Eemian (Ipswichian) interglacial Stage. Altogether 294 different species have been identified from these sites. They represent a wide spectrum of habitat requirements; terrestrial, aquatic, carnivorous and phytophagous species and many more with subtle dependences of specialist biotopes. Almost all of them live today in central and southern Europe and some are restricted to regions well south of the British Isles.

By using mutual climatic range methods, the thermal climate of the early phase of the Eemian Interglacial has been estimated quantitatively, showing that mean July temperatures were about 4°C above those of southern England today. Mean winter temperatures were not much different from those nowadays. This phase was probably the thermal maximum of the Eemian Interglacial. Precipitation levels are difficult to quantify but were adequate to maintain flowing rivers in England throughout the year. These results are in agreement with the presence of other fossils, both plants and animals, in the same deposits.

Many small deposits of Eemian age, including the stratotype, are found right across the North European plain. In adjacent areas, this interglacial is known by local names such as Ipswichian (Britain), Luhe or Ribains (France), Riss-Würm interglacial (Alps) and Mikulinian (Poland and Russia). It correlates primarily with MIS 5e of the deep-sea stratigraphy, though boundaries may not be exactly the same. Basins containing Eemian sediments rest directly on morainic deposits of all three Saalian ice advances, which must all, therefore, fall within MIS 6.

Indicator species of both plants and animals suggest that mean July temperatures in the early-temperate part of the interglacial were warmer than during the Holocene. For many years, palynologists have recognised a very uniform succession of temperate tree acme pollen zones and a substantial late-temperate expansion of Carpinus as hallmarks of this interglacial across much of northern Europe. In southern England, however, deposits with a similar pollen signature are being recognised on stratigraphie and palaeontological grounds as characterising not only the Ipswichian but also the previously poorly-defined interglacial stage correlating with MIS 7. High Carpinus values are known from these latter sites and from the Le Bouchet inter-glacial of the French Massif Central, also clearly correlated with MIS 7. Thus stratigraphie confusion and misinterpretations may have occurred at supposedly Eemian/Ipswichian sites unrelated to the glacial stratigraphy or to deep continuous records.

The uniformity and rapid development of Eemian vegetational successions may be ascribed to (1) rapid warming and the lack of any late-glacial climatic oscillation on the scale of the Younger Dryas, (2) the development of an open marine connection in the first half of the interglacial from the English Channel across the North and Baltic Seas to the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and (3) the occurrence of Saalian per-glacial refugia for Carpinus, not only in the Balkans but also on the Iberian peninsula, permitting much more rapid northward colonisation of Europe during this interglacial.

The question of climatic events within the Eemian is far from settled. Not only is the ice-core evidence ambiguous and awaiting further clarification, but the scale and synchroneity of proposed events at different continental sites in both northern and southern Europe show no clear pattern at present; clearly there is a need for more detailed investigation and interpretation. Likewise there is ongoing debate about the duration of this interglacial and its detailed correlation with the deep-sea core record and events within the North Atlantic Ocean.

Taphonomic analysis of Eemian marine mollusks and barnacles at Ristinge Klint on the island of Langeland (Denmark) provides a distinct record of a temporal succession in preservation states. Four different states of preservation are recognized and related to a decreasing hydrodynamic regime in the depositional setting of the Eemian Baltic Sea. The states show a deepening-upward transition from shallow bay environment towards deeper offshore environment. The depositional setting changed significantly in hydrodynamics about 620 and 1550 years into the Eemian (130,000 to 115,000 years BP), according to biostratigraphic correlation with the varves of the Bispingen succession. The taxonomic composition of the paleofauna supports such a deepening-upward interpretation with a contemporaneous change from brackish water to nearly full marine conditions. The sea bottom was affected by at least one period of oxygen deficiency. The analysis also shows that the preservation of shells varies according to differences in shell structures and life habits. Here we show how these differences should be considered in paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on taphonomic analyses. Taphonomy may play an important role in understanding the hydrodynamic conditions within the Eemian Baltic Sea.

A historical outline of the Eemian research in the Netherlands is presented as an introduction to recent research in the type area. At the end of the 19th and during the first part of the 20th century, Eemian sediments were recognized because of the presence of lusitanian and mediterranean mollusc species. From 1930 onwards, pollen analysis made it possible to identify also non-shell-bearing deposits and to equate them with the Eemian. At the same time this technique proved a valuable tool for understanding the vegetation development during this interglacial. Pollen zonation offered a unique possibility for the correlation of terrestrial sequences in North-West Europe.

The type area of the Eemian, near Amersfoort, was described by Harting in 1874 and was comprehensively restudied by Zagwijn (1961). A pollen zonation was introduced as a standard for the Netherlands, allowing the correlation of pollen records from both marine and non-marine depositional environments. This enabled a more detailed temporal resolution, resulting in a better understanding of the distribution of the various environments in the type area.

In the northern and central parts of the Netherlands, the identification of the marine sequence was, apart from the occurrence of the specific mollusc fauna, facilitated by the presence of a till of Saalian age underlying the Eemian deposits. The presence of deep glacial basins in these areas enabled the deposition and preservation of a complete Eemian record in a marine setting. Sediment accumulation in the basins began immediately following deglaciation at the end of the Saalian. The Eemian type sections at Amersfoort are situated near the margin of one of these basins.

Recent research of the Eemian focused on the integration of lithostratigraphic evidence and information on the sedimentary environment as derived from diatoms, dinoflagellates, foraminifers, molluscs and pollen.