An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years

2020/09/10 by Thomas Westerhold, Norbert Marwan, Anna Joy Drury +21 · 76 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils

paper · doi:10.1126/science.aba6853

openalex publication_date 2020/09/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Much of our understanding of Earth's past climate comes from the measurement of oxygen and carbon isotope variations in deep-sea benthic foraminifera. Yet, long intervals in existing records lack the temporal resolution and age control needed to thoroughly categorize climate states of the Cenozoic era and to study their dynamics. Here, we present a new, highly resolved, astronomically dated, continuous composite of benthic foraminifer isotope records developed in our laboratories. Four climate states-Hothouse, Warmhouse, Coolhouse, Icehouse-are identified on the basis of their distinctive response to astronomical forcing depending on greenhouse gas concentrations and polar ice sheet volume. Statistical analysis of the nonlinear behavior encoded in our record reveals the key role that polar ice volume plays in the predictability of Cenozoic climate dynamics.

Citations

• Oxygen Isotope and Palaeomagnetic Stratigraphy of Equatorial Pacific Core V28-238: Oxygen Isotope Temperatures and Ice Volumes on a 10⁵ Year and 10⁶ Year Scale
• A Practical Guide to Wavelet Analysis
• Spectrum estimation and harmonic analysis
• Evaluating climatic response to external radiative forcing during the late Miocene to early Pliocene: New perspectives from eastern equatorial Pacific (IODP U1338) and North Atlantic (ODP 982) locations
• Global perturbation of the carbon cycle at the onset of the Miocene Climatic Optimum
• Cenozoic sea-level and cryospheric evolution from deep-sea geochemical and continental margin records

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