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Impacts of orbital forcing and atmospheric carbon dioxide on Miocene ice-sheet expansion

Abstract

The processes causing the middle Miocene global cooling, which marked the Earth's final transition into an ‘icehouse’ climate about 13.9 million years ago (Myr ago)1,2,3,4, remain enigmatic. Tectonically driven circulation changes5,6 and variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels7,8 have been suggested as driving mechanisms, but the lack of adequately preserved sedimentary successions has made rigorous testing of these hypotheses difficult. Here we present high-resolution climate proxy records, covering the period from 14.7 to 12.7 million years ago, from two complete sediment cores from the northwest and southeast subtropical Pacific Ocean. Using new chronologies through the correlation to the latest orbital model9, we find relatively constant, low summer insolation over Antarctica coincident with declining atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the time of Antarctic ice-sheet expansion and global cooling, suggesting a causal link. We surmise that the thermal isolation of Antarctica played a role in providing sustained long-term climatic boundary conditions propitious for ice-sheet formation. Our data document that Antarctic glaciation was rapid, taking place within two obliquity cycles, and coincided with a striking transition from obliquity to eccentricity as the drivers of climatic change.

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Figure 1: Palaeoceanographic records from ODP Sites 1146 and 1237 showing that Earth's orbital configuration was the prime pacer of middle Miocene climate change.
Figure 2: Signal evolution in time–frequency space of δ 18O and Fe in ODP Sites 1146 and 1237 and of eccentricity-tilt tuning target.
Figure 3: Expanded view of 14.2–13.7 Myr ago interval.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Shipboard Scientific Parties of the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Legs 184 and 202, J. Kennett, U. Röhl, M. Sarnthein, A. Shevenell, J. Schönfeld, J. Stoner and J. Zachos for discussions. This research used samples provided by the ODP, and was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

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Correspondence to Ann Holbourn.

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Data sets are archived at WDC-MARE (http://www.pangaea.de). Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Notes

Contains additional locality information, Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Data, Supplementary Figures 1–5 and Supplementary Tables 1–4. Derivation of astronomically-tuned age models for ODP Sites 1146 and 1237 and revised chronology for ODP Site 1171 are also presented. (PDF 5825 kb)

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Holbourn, A., Kuhnt, W., Schulz, M. et al. Impacts of orbital forcing and atmospheric carbon dioxide on Miocene ice-sheet expansion. Nature 438, 483–487 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04123

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