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The Patagonian ice sheet advances and retreats during the last glacial cycle were driven by changes in the integrated summer energy with an obliquity-like periodicity and modulated by millennial-scale climate variability.

An Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown drives widespread shifts in tropical rainfall through the propagation of high-latitude cooling into the tropical North Atlantic.

The tropical African rainbelt is an important component of atmospheric circulation and the global hydrological cycle. Reconstructions of vegetation in tropical Africa over the past 23,000 years suggest that the rainbelt expanded and contracted in response to changes in high-latitude climate conditions.

Shifts in the position and intensity of the southern westerly winds recorded at single sites have been suggested to reflect uniform variation throughout the wind belt. Sedimentological analyses from the Andes suggest that changes in the intensity of the winds in the core and northern margin of the westerlies were antiphased during the Holocene epoch.

The Benguela current cooled over the past 12 million years. Numerical modelling suggests that uplift of parts of Africa during this time enhanced coastal low level winds and promoted greater upwelling of cool subsurface waters.

A continuous record of hydrologic variability for the past 17,000 years at the mouth of the Zambezi River shows that hydrologic conditions in southeast Africa were controlled by variations in local insolation and migrations of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, rather than by Indian Ocean temperature.

The Arctic summer sea-ice area during both Marine Isotope Stages 5e and 11c is primarily controlled by an inverse relationship with integrated summer energy, according to simulations of interglacial climate states.

During the last glacial termination, the North Atlantic experienced a cold interval, but its impact on tropical climate variability is not clear. Here, a fossil Tahiti coral record shows that tropical sea surface temperature varied actively during this event, consistent with climate model simulations.

Modern decadal scale sea surface temperature variability in the eastern Mediterranean is within the range reported from a Last Interglacial alkenone proxy temperature record. However, future warming could outpace Last Interglacial variability.

Debate exists on the sign of change in tropical atmospheric circulation during global warming. Here the authors show a weaker Walker cell over the Indian Ocean during the warmer late Holocene compared to the globally colder Last Glacial Maximum, implying a further slowdown of the Walker cell in response to warming.

Water level declines of 5−10m in the Caspian Sea will threaten ecosystem integrity, compromise human infrastructure, and reduce marine protected area coverage by 94%, according to bathymetric maps of the Caspian Sea projected under climate change scenarios.

The synchrony, spatial distribution and causes of the African Humid Period termination at 5.5 ka remain debated. Here, the authors show that rapid aridification in Cameroon and the central Sahel-Sahara took place between 5.8–4.8 ka and was likely triggered by high- and mid-latitude cooling.

Emissions of African dust increased sharply in the early 1970s, but the human contribution to land degradation and dust mobilization remains poorly understood. Now, a 3,200-year record of dust deposition off northwest Africa has been constructed. On the basis of this dust record and a proxy record for West African precipitation, it is suggested that human-induced dust emissions from the Sahel region have contributed to the atmospheric dust load for more than 200 years.

New sea surface temperature and oxygen isotope records, combined with climate modelling experiments, show that slowdowns of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during Heinrich stadials and the Younger Dryas stadial affected the tropical Indian Ocean hydroclimate through changes to the Hadley circulation.

Palaeoclimatic evidence of monsoon rainfall dynamics across different regions and timescales suggests that monsoon systems exhibit substantial regional variation; meridional temperature gradients are a major driver of monsoon variability, but these gradients are influenced by other, interacting forcing mechanisms, making predictions of future changes in monsoon rainfall highly uncertain.

Sea level in the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest lake, is projected to decline by between 2 and 21 meters by the end of the 21st century, depending on the model and socioeconomic pathway, according to a multi-model analysis.

Water levels in inland seas and lakes globally will drop, often dramatically, over the 21^st century in response to climate change. Based on the case of the Caspian Sea, we argue for a concerted campaign to raise awareness of threats to people, biodiversity and geopolitical stability.