Data-constrained assessment of ocean circulation changes since the middle Miocene in an Earth system model

Crichton, Katherine A.; Ridgwell, Andy; Lunt, Daniel J.; Farnsworth, Alex; Pearson, Paul N.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2223-2021

Articles | Volume 17, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2223-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2223-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 5

Research article

|

21 Oct 2021

Research article |

| 21 Oct 2021

Data-constrained assessment of ocean circulation changes since the middle Miocene in an Earth system model

Katherine A. Crichton, Andy Ridgwell, Daniel J. Lunt, Alex Farnsworth, and Paul N. Pearson

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2223-2021-supplement

Model code and software

derpycode/cgenie.muffin: Crichton et al. [revised for CP] (v0.9.22) Andy Ridgwell, Chris Reinhard, Sebastiaan van de Velde, Markus Adloff, Fanny Monteiro, DomHu, Jamie Wilson, Ben Ward, Pam Vervoort, kirtlandster, and Mingsong Li https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4741336

derpycode/muffindoc: (v0.9.20) A. Ridgwell, DomHu, C. Peterson, B. Ward, sjszas, evansmn, and R. Jones https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4615662

Short summary

The middle Miocene (15 Ma) was a period of global warmth up to 8 °C warmer than present. We investigate changes in ocean circulation and heat distribution since the middle Miocene and the cooling to the present using the cGENIE Earth system model. We create seven time slices at ~2.5 Myr intervals, constrained with paleo-proxy data, showing a progressive reduction in atmospheric CO₂ and a strengthening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.