Holocene temperature records show millennial-scale periodicity

Past studies have detected an ∼1500-year climate cycle in various types of Pleistocene geologic or ice deposits. It has been proposed that a 1470-year cycle fits the Pleistocene Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) oscillations and can be explained by a threshold model with forcing. We used nine temperature reconstructions to see if this cycle exists during the Holocene. All these data sets, except Greenland Holocene data, can be fit by models close to a 1470-year period or are compatible to such a model, or can be fit by cycles near 1200 years, both of which can be related to solar forcing. These results lend support to the nonlinear threshold model for initiation of Pleistocene DO events and suggest that this periodic climate signal has continued into the Holocene, but with reduced magnitude.