The work addresses the following questions in the context of interglacial climate dynamics: (i)
What are the amplitudes of natural climate variations on timescales of several years to
millennia? (ii) Do abrupt changes in the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean occur in
interglacials? (iii) Which biogeochemical feedback mechanisms control the natural limits of
atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols? (iv) Which linkages exist between
climate and pre-industrial cultures? The work is based on an integrated approach in
paleoclimate research in which all available paleoclimate archives (terrestrial and marine as
well as ice cores) are combined in order to yield a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of
global environmental variations. Moreover through a close linkage be-tween paleoclimate
reconstructions and results from Earth-system models detailed insights into the dynamics of
climate variations are gained.
