The traditional view of the Pliocene is one of an epoch with higher than present global mean annual temperatures (∼2 to 3 °C) and stable climate conditions. Published data-model comparisons for the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP: ∼3.3 to 3 million years ago) have identified specific regions of concordance and discord between climate model outputs and marine/terrestrial proxy data. Due to the time averaged nature of global palaeoenvironmental syntheses, it has been hypothesised that climate variability during interglacial events within the mPWP could contribute to site-specific data/model disagreement. The Hadley Centre Coupled Climate Model Version 3 (HadCM3) is used to assess the nature of climate variability around two interglacial events within the mPWP that have different characteristics of orbital forcing (Marine Isotope Stages KM5c and K1). Model results indicate that ±20 kyr on either side of the MIS KM5c, orbital forcing produced a less than 1 °C change in global mean annual temperatures. Regionally, mean annual surface air temperature (SAT) variability can reach 2 to 3 °C. Seasonal variations exceed those predicted for the annual mean and can locally exceed 5 °C. Simulations 20 kyr on either side of MIS K1 show considerably increased variability in relation to KM5c.