The recovery of the high resolution EPICA ice core records from two sites in East Antarctica opened up a new perspective on centennial to orbital climate variability and its potential forcings over close to one million years. Among others it gave a more detailed insight into bipolar teleconnections and changes in atmospheric greenhouse concentrations.

Authoritative interpretation of the controlling processes and especially the differences in the last amplitude of past interglacials requires an integrative approach including other climate archives as well as coupled climate models.

Accordingly, this session aims to use the EPICA cores, marine counterparts of similar age (including those from the EU project EPICA-MIS) and other suitable climate archives as well as climate model experiments, as a spur to greater understanding of the Earth System's behavior during the last million years. Among the many topics to be covered are insights into the bipolar coupling, the processes controlling atmospheric greenhouses gases, the differences in the last interglacials as well as the shift from a 40 ka to a 100 ka world in the late Pleistocene.