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Paleontology research has established an odd sapropel in eastern Mediterranean sediments which occurred at a time of low tropical summer insolation up to 525 thousand years ago. Most of the other sapropels known to exist in the Mediterranean occurred at higher tropical summer insolations. Further research is required to establish a full explanation of the mid-Pleistocene monsoon period.

Micropaleontological and stable-isotope foraminifera data from North Atlantic Ocean cores indicate that changes in sea surface salinity and temperature were positively associated during the last 18,000 years, a period that includes the last deglaciation. This finding further indicates that glacial climatic changes linked with the salinity and temperature changes probably resulted from fluctuations in thermohaline circulation; these fluctuations in turn derived from changes in the hydrological cycle and advection.