The projected global warming 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 has become a prime target of research to enhance our understanding of possible pathways into the future.
This session will provide a platform for exchanging new information on interglacial climate changes based on reconstructions from climate archives as well as from climate models. The session 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 climate changes in interglacials? (iii) To what extent do climate modes and decadal-scale variability depend on the interglacial background state? (iv) Can we understand the greenhouse gas records during (inter)glacials and what are the feedbacks in the Earth System? (v) What are the consequences of interglacial climate for ice sheets and sea ice? The session is initiated by the members of the integrated programs "Past4Future", “INTERDYNAMIC”, and “HOLOCLIP” but explicitly invites all contributions on interglacial climate change with a special focus on the present and the penultimate interglacial.

(co-sponsored by the IGBP project Past Global Changes (PAGES) and the FP7 project Past4Future, DFG Priority Research Program INTERDYNAMIC, and ESF PolarCLIMATE project HOLOCLIP)