et al. # a comprehensive database of paleoclimate records is needed to place recent warming into the longer-term context of natural climate variability. We present a global compilation of quality-controlled, published, temperature-sensitive proxy records extending back 12,000 years through the Holocene. Data were compiled from 679 sites where time series cover at least 4000 years, are resolved at sub-millennial scale (median spacing of 400 years or finer) and have at least one age control point every 3000 years, with cutoff values slackened in datasparse regions. The data derive from lake sediment (51%), marine sediment (31%), peat (11%), glacier ice (3%), and other natural archives. The database contains 1319 records, including 157 from the Southern Hemisphere. the multi-proxy database comprises paleotemperature time series based on ecological assemblages, as well as biophysical and geochemical indicators that reflect mean annual or seasonal temperatures, as encoded in the database. This database can be used to reconstruct the spatiotemporal evolution of Holocene temperature at global to regional scales, and is publicly available in Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format.

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14A fundamental and long-standing question of southern African palaeoclimatology is the way 15 tropical and temperate climate system dynamics have influenced rainfall regimes across the 16 subcontinent since the Last Glacial Maximum. In this paper, we analyse a selection of recently 17 published palaeoclimate reconstructions along a southwest-northeast transect across South Africa. 18These records span the last 22,000 years, and encompass the transition between the region's winter 19 and summer rainfall zones. In synthesis, these records confirm broad elements of the dominant 20 paradigm, which proposes an inverse coeval relationship between temperate and tropical systems, 21with increased precipitation in the winter (summer) rainfall zone during glacial (interglac ia l) 22 periods. Revealed, however, is a substantially more complex dynamic, with millennial-sca le 23 climate change events being strongly -even predominantly -influenced by the interaction and 24 combination of temperate and tropical systems. This synoptic forcing can create same sign 25 anomalies across the South African rainfall zones, contrary to expectations based on the classic 26 model of phase opposition. These findings suggest a new paradigm for the interpretation of 27 southern African palaeoenvironmental records that moves beyond simple binary or additive 28 influences of these systems. 29 30

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