Millennial- and orbital-scale climate variability in southeastern United States and in the subtropical Atlantic during Marine Isotope Stage 5: evidence from pollen and isotopes in ODP Site 1059 L. Heusser a; Ã , D. Oppo b a Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY 10964, USA b Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA Received 6 January 2003; received in revised form 16 June 2003; accepted 10 July 2003 Abstract We present directly correlative, high-resolution pollen and isotopic data from marine isotope stage (MIS) 5 from a marine core taken on the continental margin off the southeastern United States (31‡40PN, 75‡24PW, 2985 m). These data provide the first chronostratigraphically controlled pollen data for the last interglacial from this region. Comparison of the pollen- and benthic isotope stratigraphies demonstrate that vegetation and climate development in southeastern United States did not always coincide with global ice volume changes. Deglacial terrestrial climate amelioration, which was nearly synchronous with ice decay, peaked slightly before the ice volume minimum in MIS 5e. Cooling in the latter part of the last interglacial began at C27, prior to ice growth. Vegetation and climate were not stable during MIS 5e. Suborbital climate oscillations persisted throughout MIS 5 both onshore and in the subtropical Atlantic offshore. The largest correlative suborbital oscillations in the Pinus (pine) and Quercus (oak) forests of coastal Georgia and South Carolina and sea surface variability correspond to stadial/interstadials documented in Greenland ice cores; however, coupled oscillations also occur more frequently. ß 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Eemian; pollen; isotopes; southeastern United States; subtropical northwest Atlantic; paleoclimatology 1. Introduction Paleoclimatic data from the last interglacial (sensu stricto), marine isotope stage (MIS) 5e, the most recent near-analogue of the temperate climate of the last 10 000 years, and for the whole of MIS 5 are concentrated in the northeastern North Atlantic region (Greenland ice cores, deep-sea cores, and European pollen records). Although oceanic warmth following the peak of MIS 5e had been long recognized in the mid-lat- itude North Atlantic [1], the last interglacial (Ee- mian) in northwest Europe and throughout the world was, until recently, regarded as synchro- 0012-821X / 03 / $ ^ see front matter ß 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00389-3 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-845-351-5290; Fax: +1-845-351-5290. E-mail address: heusser@lamont.ldeo.columbia.edu (L. Heusser). Earth and Planetary Science Letters 214 (2003) 483^490 R Available online at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl