Pliocene warmth and gradients

The Pliocene epoch (5.3–2.6 Ma) generates continued debate as an example of a warm climate with external forcing similar to the present day. O'Brien et al. presented new multi-proxy sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions from the South China Sea, adding to this debate. Based on their rec...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Brierley, C, Burls, N, Ravelo, AC, Fedorov, AV
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Pacific
Planktonic foraminifera
Online Access:https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1469357/3/Brierley.1469357_Redacted.Submitted.pdf
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1469357/
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Summary:The Pliocene epoch (5.3–2.6 Ma) generates continued debate as an example of a warm climate with external forcing similar to the present day. O'Brien et al. presented new multi-proxy sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions from the South China Sea, adding to this debate. Based on their records, and a hypothesized seawater chemistry adjustment to temperature reconstructions previously derived from the Mg/Ca ratios of planktonic foraminifera, they suggest that the western Pacific warm pool was “2 °C warmer than today” in the Pliocene. This contradicts previous evidence of long-term stability in warm pool SSTs, but possibly reconciles temperature reconstructions and climate model simulations. Here we raise several points contrary to those conclusions.

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