Articles | Volume 19, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2109-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2109-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
01 Nov 2023
Research article |
| 01 Nov 2023
| 01 Nov 2023
Limited exchange between the deep Pacific and Atlantic oceans during the warm mid-Pliocene and Marine Isotope Stage M2 “glaciation”
Department of Earth Science and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, 5007, Norway
Kim A. Jakob
Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, 69120, Germany
Sze Ling Ho
Department of Earth Science and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, 5007, Norway
Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan
Oliver Friedrich
Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, 69120, Germany
Eirik Vinje Galaasen
Department of Earth Science and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, 5007, Norway
Stijn De Schepper
NORCE Norwegian Research Centre and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, 5007, Norway
Paul A. Wilson
School of Ocean and Earth Sciences, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK
Anna Nele Meckler
Department of Earth Science and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, 5007, Norway
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Honbing Edmond Duong, Heather L. Ford, Yong Sun, Julia Tindall, Alan Haywood, Taylor Deneau, Clay Tabor, Ran Feng, Natalie Burls, Sze Ling Ho, Erin L. McClymont, Sarah Greene, Pam Vervoort, Jordan T. Abell, Montserrat Alonso-Garcia, Pallavi Anand, Melissa Berke, Anya Crocker, Friso de Graaf, Stijn De Schepper, Cyrus Karas, Kate Littler, Benjamin Petrick, Amila Sandaruwan Ratnayake, Bjørg Risebrobakken, George E. A. Swann, Christian Stepanek, Deborah Tangunan, Kaustubh Thirumalai, and Antje H. L. Voelker
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-6464, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-6464, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Climate of the Past (CP).
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Deep circulation in the Atlantic helps regulate climate by moving heat and carbon around the globe. Using fossil evidence from a warm period 3 million years ago, this study found that North Atlantic Deep Water was more widespread than climate models suggest. Disagreements between the fossil data and climate models highlight uncertainties in the fossil data and climate models and how the deep ocean responds to warming, limiting predictions of future deep ocean changes.
Sindia M. Sosdian, Alexandra Auderset, Sevasti Modestou, Ann Holbourn, Flavia Boscolo-Galazzo, Anna Joy Drury, Anya V. Hess, Karlos G. D. Kochhann, Diederik Liebrand, Xiaoqing Liu, Jared Nirenberg, Neeraj S. Shah, Deborah Tangunan, Gerald Auer, Marcus P. S. Badger, Clara Bolton, Alexander Clark, Anya Crocker, David Evans, Sarah Feakins, Timothy Herbert, Emily Judd, Jennifer Kasbohm, David King, Wout Krijgsman, Wolfgang Kuhnt, Kira Lawrence, Caroline H. Lear, Kim Marshall-Mills, Erin McClymont, Nele Meckler, Paul Minton, Katrina Nilsson-Kerr, Diana Ochoa, Marci Robinson, Thamizharasan Sakthivel, Francesca Sangiorgi, Amelia E. Shevenell, Weimin Si, Elizabeth Sibert, Kasia K. Sliwinska, Appy Sluijs, Heather Stoll, Victoria Taylor, Tim van Peer, Bridget Wade, Thomas Westerhold, Evi Wubben, Yige Zhang, and Martin Ziegler
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-699, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-699, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD
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The MioOcean database hosts Miocene (23–5.3 million years ago) ocean temperatures, standardised and with updated age information, comprising 22,941 data points from 101 scientific studies. As parts of the Miocene were warmer than present, with estimated CO2 levels similar to those projected for the near future, this database enables assessment of how past oceans responded to climate variations, which may improve predictions of climate responses to anticipated future warming.
Daniel J. Lunt, Nicky M. Wright, Bram Vaes, Ulrich Salzmann, James W. B. Rae, Thomas Hickler, David K. Hutchinson, Julia Brugger, Jiang Zhu, Sebastian Steinig, A. Nele Meckler, Gordon N. Inglis, David Evans, Agatha M. de Boer, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Natalie Burls, Yurui Zhang, Appy Sluijs, Tammo Reichgelt, Igor Niezgodzki, Katrin Meissner, Jean-Baptiste Ladant, Fanni D. Kelemen, Matthew Huber, David R. Greenwood, Mattias Green, Flavia Boscolo-Galazzo, Manuel Tobias Blau, and Michiel Baatsen
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 6143–6166, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6143-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6143-2026, 2026
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The early Eocene, about 50 million years ago, was a super-warm period of Earth's history, with high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Here, we provide a framework and experimental design for climate modellers to carry out a coordinated project, simulating this period. This is the second phase of this project, and here we provide updated maps of the Earth's mountains and ocean floor, and vegetation, to enable more accurate modelling.
Yves Krüger, Leonardo Pasqualetto, Alvaro Fernandez, Kim M. Cobb, and A. Nele Meckler
Clim. Past, 21, 1553–1584, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1553-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1553-2025, 2025
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Using a stalagmite from Whiterock Cave (Gunung Mulu National Park, Northern Borneo), covering the time interval from 460000 to 333000 years B.P., including two glacial terminations, we employed nucleation-assisted fluid inclusion microthermometry to reconstruct a tropical cave temperature record. The record reveals an amplitude of glacial-interglacial temperature changes of 4.2 °C and a strong linear correlation with Antarctic temperature anomalies, yielding a polar amplification factor of 2.3.
James D. Annan, Julia C. Hargreaves, Thorsten Mauritsen, Erin McClymont, and Sze Ling Ho
Clim. Past, 20, 1989–1999, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1989-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1989-2024, 2024
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We have created a new global surface temperature reconstruction of the climate of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, representing the period roughly 3.2 million years before the present day. We estimate that the globally averaged mean temperature was around 3.9 °C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times, but there is significant uncertainty in this value.
Lauren E. Burton, Alan M. Haywood, Julia C. Tindall, Aisling M. Dolan, Daniel J. Hill, Erin L. McClymont, Sze Ling Ho, and Heather L. Ford
Clim. Past, 20, 1177–1194, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1177-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1177-2024, 2024
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The Pliocene (~ 3 million years ago) is of interest because its warm climate is similar to projections of the future. We explore the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide in forcing sea surface temperature during the Pliocene by combining climate model outputs with palaeoclimate proxy data. We investigate whether this role changes seasonally and also use our data to suggest a new estimate of Pliocene climate sensitivity. More data are needed to further explore the results presented.
Werner Ehrmann, Paul A. Wilson, Helge W. Arz, Hartmut Schulz, and Gerhard Schmiedl
Clim. Past, 20, 37–52, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-37-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-37-2024, 2024
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Climatic and associated hydrological changes controlled the aeolian versus fluvial transport processes and the composition of the sediments in the central Red Sea through the last ca. 200 kyr. We identify source areas of the mineral dust and pulses of fluvial discharge based on high-resolution grain size, clay mineral, and geochemical data, together with Nd and Sr isotope data. We provide a detailed reconstruction of changes in aridity/humidity.
Elwyn de la Vega, Thomas B. Chalk, Mathis P. Hain, Megan R. Wilding, Daniel Casey, Robin Gledhill, Chongguang Luo, Paul A. Wilson, and Gavin L. Foster
Clim. Past, 19, 2493–2510, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2493-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2493-2023, 2023
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We evaluate how faithfully the boron isotope composition of foraminifera records atmospheric CO2 by comparing it to the high-fidelity CO2 record from the Antarctic ice cores. We evaluate potential factors and find that partial dissolution of foraminifera shells, assumptions of seawater chemistry, and the biology of foraminifera all have a negligible effect on reconstructed CO2. This gives confidence in the use of boron isotopes beyond the interval when ice core CO2 is available.
Jenny Maccali, Anna Nele Meckler, Stein-Erik Lauritzen, Torill Brekken, Helen Aase Rokkan, Alvaro Fernandez, Yves Krüger, Jane Adigun, Stéphane Affolter, and Markus Leuenberger
Clim. Past, 19, 1847–1862, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1847-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1847-2023, 2023
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The southern coast of South Africa hosts some key archeological sites for the study of early human evolution. Here we present a short but high-resolution record of past changes in the hydroclimate and temperature on the southern coast of South Africa based on the study of a speleothem collected from Bloukrantz Cave. Overall, the paleoclimate indicators suggest stable temperature from 48.3 to 45.2 ka, whereas precipitation was variable, with marked short drier episodes.
Bjørg Risebrobakken, Mari F. Jensen, Helene R. Langehaug, Tor Eldevik, Anne Britt Sandø, Camille Li, Andreas Born, Erin Louise McClymont, Ulrich Salzmann, and Stijn De Schepper
Clim. Past, 19, 1101–1123, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1101-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1101-2023, 2023
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In the observational period, spatially coherent sea surface temperatures characterize the northern North Atlantic at multidecadal timescales. We show that spatially non-coherent temperature patterns are seen both in further projections and a past warm climate period with a CO2 level comparable to the future low-emission scenario. Buoyancy forcing is shown to be important for northern North Atlantic temperature patterns.
Raúl Tapia, Sze Ling Ho, Hui-Yu Wang, Jeroen Groeneveld, and Mahyar Mohtadi
Biogeosciences, 19, 3185–3208, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3185-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3185-2022, 2022
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We report census counts of planktic foraminifera in depth-stratified plankton net samples off Indonesia. Our results show that the vertical distribution of foraminifera species routinely used in paleoceanographic reconstructions varies in hydrographically distinct regions, likely in response to food availability. Consequently, the thermal gradient based on mixed layer and thermocline dwellers also differs for these regions, suggesting potential implications for paleoceanographic reconstructions.
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Short summary
In the context of understanding current global warming, the middle Pliocene (3.3–3.0 million years ago) is an important interval in Earth's history because atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were similar to levels today. We have reconstructed deep-sea temperatures at two different locations for this period, and find that a very different mode of ocean circulation or mixing existed, with important implications for how heat was transported in the deep ocean.
In the context of understanding current global warming, the middle Pliocene (3.3–3.0 million...
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