Marine isotope stages (MIS),
marine oxygen-isotope stages, or
oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's
paleoclimate, deduced from
oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data from deep sea
core samples. Working backwards from the present, which is MIS 1 in the scale, stages with even numbers have high levels of oxygen-18 and represent cold glacial periods, while the odd-numbered stages are troughs in the oxygen-18 figures, representing warm
interglacial intervals. The data are derived from
pollen and
foraminifera (
plankton) remains in drilled marine
sediment cores,
sapropels, and other data that reflect historic climate; these are called
proxies.