An 8.6 million year reconstruction of paleotemperatures and paleovegetation from Lake Baikal, Russia, derived from Baikal Drilling Project core materials. This dataset also includes compiled paleovegetation data from the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene from boreal regions and a new global mean surface temperature stack derived from published sea surface temperature records. Paleotemperatures were estimated from the methylation of branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers. Paleovegetation was reconstructed from plant wax n-alkane distributions and published pollen data. Paleovegetation data were compiled from published studies.