Enhanced climate instability in the North Atlantic and southern Europe during the Last Interglacial.

Considerable ambiguity remains over the extent and nature of millennial/centennial-scale climate instability during the Last Interglacial (LIG). Here we analyse marine and terrestrial proxies from a deep-sea sediment sequence on the Portuguese Margin and combine results with an intensively dated Italian speleothem record and climate-model experiments. The strongest expression of climate variability occurred during the transitions into and out of the LIG. Our records also document a series of multi-centennial intra-interglacial arid events in southern Europe, coherent with cold water-mass expansions in the North Atlantic. The spatial and temporal fingerprints of these changes indicate a reorganization of ocean surface circulation, consistent with low-intensity disruptions of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The amplitude of this LIG variability is greater than that observed in Holocene records. Episodic Greenland ice melt and runoff as a result of excess warmth may have contributed to AMOC weakening and increased climate instability throughout the LIG.

The effect of immunotherapy on T-cell subsets in peripheral blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in pollen-allergic patients.

The effect of immunotherapy (IT) on T-cell subsets in peripheral blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL) was examined in 15 patients with rhinoconjunctivitis and asthma caused by sensitivity to birch pollen. They were treated with IT for 3 years. Seven patients were treated with highly standardized birch-pollen extract (Pharmacia, Sweden). Eight untreated patients served as controls. Histamine challenge, blood sampling, and BAL were performed before (January, February), and at the peak of, the birch-pollen season (May). The subpopulations of T cells in peripheral blood and BAL fluid were investigated by immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry. During the birch-pollen season, the percentage of CD3+ and CD4+ cells of blood mononuclear cells in the IT patients increased significantly (P < 0.03 and P < 0.02, respectively). The percentage of CD8+ cells remained unaltered. In control patients, no changes of T-cell subsets in the peripheral blood were observed. T-cell subsets in BAL did not change during the season in relation to preseasonal values for either IT-treated or non-IT-treated patients.