Articles | Volume 19, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2203-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2203-2023
Research article
 | 
06 Nov 2023
Research article |  | 06 Nov 2023

Sensitivity of Neoproterozoic snowball-Earth inceptions to continental configuration, orbital geometry, and volcanism

Julius Eberhard, Oliver E. Bevan, Georg Feulner, Stefan Petri, Jeroen van Hunen, and James U. L. Baldini

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Cited articles

Abbot, D. and Halevy, I.: Dust aerosol important for Snowball Earth deglaciation, J. Climate, 23, 4121–4132, https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JCLI3378.1, 2010. a, b
Abbot, D. and Pierrehumbert, R.: Mudball: surface dust and Snowball Earth deglaciation, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D03104, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012007, 2010. a, b
Abbot, D., Voigt, A., and Koll, D.: The Jormungand global climate state and implications for Neoproterozoic glaciations, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D18103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD015927, 2011. a
Allen, P. and Etienne, J.: Sedimentary challenge to Snowball Earth, Nat. Geosci., 1, 817–825, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo355, 2008. a
Ammann, C. and Naveau, P.: A statistical volcanic forcing scenario generator for climate simulations, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D05107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012550, 2010. a, b, c, d, e, f
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Short summary
During at least two phases in its past, Earth was more or less covered in ice. These “snowball Earth” events probably started suddenly upon undercutting a certain threshold in the carbon-dioxide concentration. This threshold can vary considerably under different conditions. In our study, we find the thresholds for different distributions of continents, geometries of Earth’s orbit, and volcanic eruptions. The results show that the threshold might have varied by up to 46 %.