Abstract. Past climate is an important benchmark to assess the ability of climate models to simulate key processes and feedbacks. Numerous proxy records exist for stable isotopes of water and/or carbon, which are also implemented inside the components of a growing number of Earth system model. Model-data comparisons can help to constrain the uncertainties associated with transfer functions. This motivates the need of producing a comprehensive compilation of different proxy sources. We have put together a global database of proxy records of oxygen (δ 18 O), hydrogen (δD) and carbon (δ 13 C) stable isotopes from different archives: ocean and lake sediments, corals, ice cores, speleothems and tree-ring cellulose. Source records were obtained from the georeferenced open access PANGAEA and NOAA libraries, complemented by additional data obtained from a literature survey. About 3000 source records were screened for chronological information and temporal resolution of proxy records. Altogether, this database consists of hundreds of dated δ 18 O, δ 13 C and δD records in a standardized simple text format, complemented with a metadata Excel catalog. A quality control flag was implemented to describe age markers and inform on chronological uncertainty. This compilation effort highlights the need to homogenize and structure the format of datasets and chronological information as well as enhance the distribution of published datasets that are currently highly fragmented and scattered. We also provide an online portal based on the records included in this database with an intuitive and interactive platform (http://climateproxiesfinder.ipsl.fr/), allowing one to easily select, visualize and download subsets of the homogeneously formatted records that constitute this database, following a choice of search criteria, and to upload new datasets. In the last part, we illustrate the type of application allowed by our database by comparing several key periods highly investigated by the paleoclimate community.
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