Coherent millennial-scale patterns in U₃₇^k' and TEX₈₆^H temperature records during the penultimate interglacial-to-glacial cycle in the western Mediterranean

The TEX86H temperature proxy is a relatively new proxy based on crenarchaeotal lipids and has rarely been applied together with other temperature proxies. In this study, we applied the TEX86H on a sediment core from the Alboran Sea (western Mediterranean, core ODP-977A) covering the penultimate climate cycle, that is, from 244 to 130 ka, and compared this with previously published sea surface temperatures derived from the U-37(k)' of alkenones of haptophyta and Mg/Ca records of planktonic foraminifera. The TEX86H temperature record shows remarkably similar stadial-interstadial patterns and abrupt temperature changes to those observed with the U-37(k)' palaeothermometer. Absolute TEX86H temperature estimates are generally higher than those of U-37(k)', though this difference (<3 degrees C in 81% of the data points) is mainly within the temperature calibration error for both proxies, suggesting that crenarchaeota and haptophyta experienced similar temperature variations. During occasional events (