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[1] We present a new 150-year, high-resolution, stable isotope record (d 18 O) from the Gomez ice core, drilled on the data sparse south western Antarctic Peninsula, revealing a $2.7°C rise in surface temperatures since the 1950s. The record is highly correlated with satellite-derived temperature reconstructions and instrumental records from Faraday station on the north west coast, thus making it a robust proxy for local and regional temperatures since the 1850s. We conclude that the exceptional 50-year warming, previously only observed in the northern Peninsula, is not just a local phenomena but part of a statistically significant 100-year regional warming trend that began around 1900. A suite of coupled climate models are employed to demonstrate that the 50 and 100 year temperature trends are outside of the expected range of variability from pre-industrial control runs, indicating that the warming is likely the result of external climate forcing.

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Recent (<50 years old) freshwater cyanobacterial carbonates from diverse environments (streams, lakes, waterfalls) throughout Britain and Ireland were analysed for their stable carbon and oxygen isotope compositions. The mean δ18O value of −5–9‰ PDB for river and stream data represents calcite precipitation in equilibrium with the mean oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation in central Britain (−7–5‰SMOW) assuming a mean water temperature of 9°C. The mean δ18O of lake data, −4–5‰ PDB, is statistically different, reflecting the effects of residence time and/or variations in the oxygen isotopic composition of rainfall. Carbon isotopes have wide variations in both fluviatile and lake data sets (+ 3 to −12‰ PDB). These variations are principally controlled in the fluviatile samples by contribution of isotopically light ‘soil zone’ carbon relative to isotopically heavier carbon from limestone aquifer rock dissolution. Lake samples have the heaviest carbon isotope values, reflecting a trend toward isotopic equilibrium between atmospheric CO2 and aqueous HCO−3. We infer that isotopic compositions of ancient cyanobacterial carbonates should also record environmental information, although the effects of stabilization and diagenesis on primary δ18O values will need careful consideration. Primary carbon isotope compositions should be well preserved, although in marine samples values will be buffered by the isotopic composition of aqueous marine bicarbonate.

Late Pleistocene terrestrial climate records in India may be preserved in oxygen and carbon stable isotopes in pedogenic calcrete. Petrography shows that calcrete nodules in Quaternary sediments of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan are pedogenic, with little evidence for postpedogenic alteration. The calcrete occurs in four laterally persistent and one nonpersistent eolian units, separated by colluvial gravel. Thermoluminescence and infrared- and green-light-stimulated luminescence of host quartz and feldspar grains gave age brackets for persistent eolian units I–IV of ca. 70,000–60,000, ca. 60,000–55,000, ca. 55,000–43,000, and ca. 43,000–∼25,000 yr, respectively. The youngest eolian unit (V) is <10,000 yr old and contains no calcrete. Stable oxygen isotope compositions of calcretes in most of eolian unit I, in the upper part of eolian unit IV, and in the nonpersistent eolian unit, range between −4.6 and −2.1‰ PDB. These values, up to 4.4‰ greater than values from eolian units II and III, are interpreted as representing nonmonsoonal18O-enriched “normal continental” waters during climatic phases when the monsoon weakened or failed. Conversely, 25,000–60,000-yr-old calcretes (eolian units II and III) probably formed under monsoonal conditions. The two periods of weakened monsoon are consistent with other paleoclimatic data from India and may represent widespread aridity on the Indian subcontinent during isotope stages 2 and 4. The total variation in δ13C is 1.7‰ (0.0–1.7‰), and δ13C covaries positively and linearly with δ18O. δ13C values are highest when δ18O values indicate the most arid climatic conditions. This is best explained by expansion of C4grasses at the expense of C3plants at low latitudes during glacial periods when atmospheric pCO2was lowered. C4dominance was overridingly influenced by global change in atmospheric pCO2despite the lowered summer rainfall.

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