Climate proxies of sea-surface temperature, carbon isotopes, and dust flux for the last 800-kyr and the Mid-Brunhes Transition

The MBT has been identified in ice-core records, which indicate interglaciations became warmer with higher atmospheric CO2 levels after the MBT, and benthic oxygen isotope (δ18O) records, which suggest that post-MBT interglaciations had higher sea levels than pre-MBT interglaciations.

It remains unclear, however, whether the MBT was a globally synchronous phenomenon that included other components of the climate system. Here we further characterize changes in the climate system across the MBT through statistical analyses of ice-core and δ18O records as well as sea-surface temperature, benthic carbon isotope, and dust accumulation records. Our results demonstrate that the MBT was a global event with a significant increase in climate variance in most components of the climate system assessed here.