The predicted global warming during the next 100 years urgently calls for an improved understanding of the climate system including biogeochemical cycles. With the anthropogenic change taking place under interglacial boundary conditions, the natural variability of interglacial climate dynamics and biogeochemical cycles and their sensitivity to generally warmer conditions than today becomes a prime target of research to predict future changes.
This session will provide an overview of current research on interglacial climate changes based on natural climate archives and climate models. It will address questions such as: (i) Were there significant changes in ocean and atmosphere circulation during the present and previous interglacial periods? (ii) What is the risk of abrupt changes in interglacials? (iii) Can we understand the greenhouse gas records during (inter)glacials and what are the feedbacks in the Earth System? (iv) What is the risk of (rapid) shrinking of ice sheets? The session is initiated by the members of the current FP7 integrated program "Past4Future" but explicitly invites all contributions on interglacial climate change with a special focus on the present and the penultimate interglacial.