Short-term terrestrial climate variability through MIS 3 and Termination 1

Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 represents a critical interval for understading the response of terretrial environments to rapid climate change driven by orbital focring. As the primary constituent of loess and a major driver in global climate forcing, mineral dust serves as a proxy that allows for direct comparison of loess data with chronologically better resolved ice and lake records. Motivated by the recent emergence of high-resolution magnetic and sedimentological data on European loess-paleosol profiles, we explore advances and drawbacks in comparing regional paleoenvironmental response to millennial-scale climate variability during last glacial cycle. We show that the Lower Danube loess preserves a convincing paleoclimate record that closely tracks the Greenland interstadials/stadials (GI/GS) during MIS 3. To explore regional patterns of change, we focus in comparing loess records with better-established lacustrine and marine records from southeastern Europe. As reliable chronological control is the major limiting factor in exploring the full MIS 3 paleoclimate potential of loess records, we also discuss regional implications in defining an improved loess chronostratigraphic framework based on several lines of chronological evidence, and especially loess tephrochronology.