A high-resolution mid-Pleistocene temperature record from Arctic Lake El'gygytgyn: a 50 kyr super interglacial from MIS 33 to MIS 31?

• High-resolution continental temperature reconstruction spanning from MIS 33 to MIS 31.
• MIS 31 warming in the Beringian Arctic matched only by MIS 11 during Pleistocene.
• Warm, “interglacial” conditions prevailed for ∼50 kyr (1114–1062 kyr BP).
• Maximum temperatures in Siberia out of phase with local summer insolation.
• Similarities with Antarctic records suggest that MIS 32 be relegated to a stadial.

Previous periods of extreme warmth in Earth's history are of great interest in light of current and predicted anthropogenic warming. Numerous so called “super interglacial” intervals, with summer temperatures significantly warmer than today, have been identified in the 3.6 million year (Ma) sediment record from Lake El'gygytgyn, northeast Russia. To date, however, a high-resolution paleotemperature reconstruction from any of these super interglacials is lacking. Here we present a paleotemperature reconstruction based on branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) from Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 35 to MIS 29, including super interglacial MIS 31. To investigate this period in detail, samples were analyzed with an unprecedented average sample resolution of 500 yrs from MIS 33 to MIS 30. Our results suggest the entire period currently defined as MIS 33–31 (∼1114–1062 kyr BP) was characterized by generally warm and highly variable conditions at the lake, at times out of phase with Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, and that cold “glacial” conditions during MIS 32 lasted only a few thousand years. Close similarities are seen with coeval records from high southern latitudes, supporting the suggestion that the interval from MIS 33 to MIS 31 was an exceptionally long interglacial (Teitler et al., 2015). Based on brGDGT temperatures from Lake El'gygytgyn (this study and unpublished results), warming in the western Arctic during MIS 31 was matched only by MIS 11 during the Pleistocene.