Talk:Last Interglacial

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Early comments[edit]

The ice core stuff... is that up to date? I understood that the ?GRIP? core was re-interpreted for the Eemian and the shifts were artefacts. William M. Connolley 12:14, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC).

Could anyone provide the complete reference for: 'Kaspar, F et al.; GRL 2005, v32 L11703'
This is rather cryptic for many people.--Tom Meijer 09:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I added a link to the ref William M. Connolley 10:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The first GRIP core had a disturbed Eemian (Stage 5e); they were getting close to the base of the ice. But the plot shows two different Antarctic ice records (rather than Northern hemisphere) and the ice record there seems to be fine through multiple glacial/interglacial transitions.Orbitalforam 11:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this section really true? - "and by 114,000 years ago, a glacial era had returned." My understanding from the collected data is that after the Eemian there was a protracted period of colder than present but not Ice Age conditions punctuated by rather limited warm episodes until the beginning of the most recent Ice Age sbout 70000 to 75000 years ago. I shall look up the relevant period in Ruddiman and check back here before making changes--AssegaiAli 16:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

d-o-18 is generally used as a T proxy; see the graph William M. Connolley 17:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you want to indicate that although climate in Eemian was so warm to melt enough ice from Antarctica and Greenland to rise see level 4-6m above the present level, global mean temperature at the same time, by and large, wasn't warmer then at the present significantly? What is the basis for your assertion that temperature during Eemian wasn't higher than during Holocene? Study based on ice cores published in Nature 1996 shows peak Eemian temperatures were more than 2 degg. C higher than peak Holocene temperatures. http://gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/winter96/article1-fig3.html. (Let me guess - it would be little inconvenient and "confusing" for reader to discover that 130 000 ago it was 2 deg C or more warmer than today, with CO2 concentrations 20% lower than today).--Ivan Grozni IIa (talk) 12:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That figure shows Antarctic temperatures. Global change would be substantially lower. Not quite that either: it shows the temperatures reconstructed from one ice core. Thats an old figure, using 1987 data. I'm not at all sure that anyone has a good global figure for the Eemian, which is why the article says The Eemian climate is believed to have been about as stable as, but probably warmer than that of, the Holocene. That sea level was higher is known, though William M. Connolley (talk) 14:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As a palaeontologist I have always considered Eemian temperatures at least 2 degrees higher than 'today'. This should have been at least the case in NW Europe. Before oxygen isotope studies it was already very clear from faunal and floral data that seawater temperatures should have been considerably higher than today because of the presence of Mediterranean and Lusitanian marine species (molluscs, foraminifera, diatoms) in the North Sea Basin. Even several mediterranean/lusitanian molluscan taxa have been able to settle in the Baltic Sea - White Sea passage! Today, as far as molluscs are concerned, a considerable lower share of the marine assemblages can be considered as genuine southern taxa. Only since about 10-15 years a very few of the socalled Eemian (so: 'warm') taxa is colonizing a few parts of the southern North Sea.
An indirect indication is that according to shell characters of marine molluscan species, especially Cerastoderma edule, the salinity of the seawater in the Eemian type area (which was a North Sea embayment) was considerably higher than today. This can only have happened with much higher temperatures of the seawater. I elaborated this in our paper about the Eemian typesite at Amersfoort.
Also from terrestrial floral data (pollenanalysis) the Eemian is warmer than the Holocene climatic optimum (which is by the way a few thousand years ago) and is stìll warmer than today. As Ivan Grozni points out the oxygen isotope peak 5e is one of the highest peaks of the Pleistocene, although the really warm period should have covered only a small part of the interglacial.
Because CO2 was lower than today these facts are uncomfortable for greenhouse believers. Climate is much more complicated than commonly considered.
About sealevel. Correction for downwarping as present in the Netherlands and taking into account the shallowest occurrences of the top of marine Eemian deposits gives us a sealevel that is at least 6-8 metres higher than today. --Tom Meijer (talk) 14:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this information should be added to the page: http://www.geus.dk/publications/bull/nr10/nr10_p61-64.pdf. Generally, according to the sediments, north pole have been ice free during Eemian. 82.128.226.51 (talk) 19:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move Parsecboy (talk) 15:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The Eemian is a stage, however, the term 'Stage' (as well as 'Interglacial') is not part of the name of the unit. The proper name is Eemian and not Eemian Stage as is incorrectly suggested by the person who changed the name! The same holds true for all glacial and interglacial stages. The name of the unit is 'Hoxnian' and not 'Hoxnian Stage', 'Holsteinian' and not 'Holsteinian Stage', etc.

I did not notice a remark concerning the difference in status between locally used names such as Sangamonian, Ipswichian, etc. and the 'Eemian'. The latter is the name that is used in the globally used stratigraphical column. The other names represent deposits in other areas that have been correlated with the Eemian. The other names are important for local use. Globally the name 'Eemian' should be used.--Tom Meijer (talk) 10:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mr Meijer is right about the proper name being the 'Eemian' and not the 'Eemian Stage' and so forth.
However, Mr. Meijer is wrong about Eemian being the global term for this period of time. There is no difference in status between the Eeemian, and correlative stages, i.e. Sangamonian, Ipswichian, Mikulinian, and so forth, in other parts of the world. They are all regional names and none of them is used globally as is incorrectly claimed above.
Go look at:
Gibbard, P.L., S. Boreham, K.M. Cohen and A. Moscariello, 2007, Global chronostratigraphical correlation table for the last 2.7 million years v. 2007b, jpg version 844 KB. Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England
In this correlation chart, Eemian is given the same areal rank, a regional stage, as Sangamonian, Ipswichian, Mikulinian, and so forth.Paul H. (talk) 19:17, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Question article validity[edit]

I question the validity of Ancient Biomolecules from Deep Ice Cores Reveal a Forested Southern Greenland (Science 2007) as a reliable source. Specifically, it claims that the Greenland Dye 3 core covers over one million years. Other sources claim closer to 100 thousand years. This source is also used in the Greenland article. Q Science (talk) 07:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Trying to question Science as a source just isn't going to work. It is most likely an interpretation problem. I think your error is Specifically, it claims that the Greenland Dye 3 core covers over one million years. Other sources claim closer to 100 thousand years - the 100 kyr for existing cores is the stratigraphically complete limit (remember all the fuss about D-O events in the Eemian that turned out to be core problems?) The actual bottom ice age is much more than 100 kyr William M. Connolley (talk) 10:19, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anon rewrite and temperatures[edit]

An anon hacked the article around - on a quick skim I don't see much to complain about, and perhaps it is better. However on the ever-contentious issue of temperature he changed "about the same" to "probably warmer" and in one place left it contradictory. I've restored what we once had. But neither looks terribly well sourced. See need a palaeogeologist... William M. Connolley (talk) 10:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Updated info...[edit]

Here's some updated info for someone to edit in; I noticed some differences between what is printed here and the newest discoveries: [1] [2]. Frunobulax (talk) 18:49, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Global term?[edit]

How should the various terms used around the world for this stage be represented in WP. I note about on this talk page the comment (cited) that: 'However, Mr. Meijer is wrong about Eemian being the global term for this period of time. There is no difference in status between the Eeemian, and correlative stages, i.e. Sangamonian, Ipswichian, Mikulinian, and so forth, in other parts of the world. They are all regional names and none of them is used globally as is incorrectly claimed above.' I am not an expert on the subject, but did recently make some changes which I now realise go against this, it seems to me that it would be much more useful to have a single article, or at least a single lead article, for this geological period, rather than a muddle of articles which cover the same period with different titles and repeat much of the content. PeterEastern (talk) 06:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

USGS "Last Interglacial: Timing and Environment (LITE)"[edit]

I rediscovered the link to the USGS "Last Interglacial: Timing and Environment (LITE)".

I have a map from the USGS depicting the forest-prairie boundaries of the Eemian and the present day. The text says much less than the map can.

The map is of course public domain as the result of creation by an agency of the US government (USGS)... I just don't know how to make it show up in Wikipedia.Pbrower2a (talk) 17:31, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"The period closed..."[edit]

"The period closed as temperatures steadily fell to conditions cooler and drier than the present, with 468-year-long aridity pulse in central Europe..."

This seems to have been an awkward translation. Would anyone care to perfect it? Kortoso (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Pronunciation[edit]

This is derived from the name of the river Eem, pronounced /em/, but seems to be pronounced in English /‘imian/ or /i’mian/. TomS TDotO (talk) 23:46, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 28 February 2024[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Closed as successful, awaiting page mover. Geardona (talk to me?) 01:01, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Eemian → Last Interglacial – "Eemian" is the regional European name for the Last Interglacial, and it's pretty clear looking at scholar that "Eemian" is almost exclusively used in a regional European context, rather than as a global name for this interglacial. Many papers discussing the last interglacial outside of Europe do not use Eemian at all. Last Interglacial is also more common than Eemian looking at scholar [3] [4] Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Geology has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:13, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - per nom. Mikenorton (talk) 20:09, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - The name "Last Interglacial" is the global name for this paleoclimatological period, and is easier to understand and more common than "Eemian".--Prefuture (talk) 07:47, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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