The effect of the Pliocene temperature pattern on silicate weathering and Pliocene–Pleistocene cooling

Maffre, Pierre; Chiang, John C. H.; Swanson-Hysell, Nicholas L.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1461-2023

Articles | Volume 19, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1461-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1461-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 7

Research article

|

21 Jul 2023

Research article |

| 21 Jul 2023

The effect of the Pliocene temperature pattern on silicate weathering and Pliocene–Pleistocene cooling

Pierre Maffre, John C. H. Chiang, and Nicholas L. Swanson-Hysell

Data sets

Data for: The effect of Pliocene regional climate changes on silicate weathering P., Maffre, J. Chiang, and N. Swanson-Hysell https://doi.org/10.6078/D11H7D

Model code and software

piermafrost/GEOCLIM-dynsoil-steady-state: version compatible with Maffre et al. (2023) Clim Past P. Maffre, N. Swanson-Hysell, and Y. Park https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8013407

Short summary

CO₂ consumption by chemical alteration of continental silicate rocks regulates atmospheric CO₂ and Earth's mean climate. The efficiency of this regulation is affected by the amount of continental precipitation and may have been reduced 3 to 4 million years ago because of different patterns of sea surface temperature. This process could have contributed to the warmer climate of that time.