skip to main content


Title: Estimates of Pliocene Tropical Pacific Temperature Sensitivity to Radiative Greenhouse Gas Forcing
Abstract

The Western Equatorial Pacific (WEP) warm pool, with surface temperatures >28 °C and a deep thermocline, is an important source of latent and sensible heat for the global climate system. Because the tropics are not sensitive to ice‐albedo feedbacks, the WEP's response to radiative forcing can be used to constrain a minimum estimate of Earth system sensitivity. Climate modeling ofpCO2‐radiative warming projections shows little change in WEP variability; here we use temperature distributions of individual surface and subsurface dwelling fossil foraminifera to evaluate past variability and possible radiative and dynamic climate forcing over the Plio‐Pleistocene. We investigate WEP warm pool variability within paired glacial‐interglacial (G‐IG) intervals for four times: the Holocene‐Last Glacial Maximum, ~2, ~3, and ~4 Ma. Our results show that these surface and subsurface temperature distributions are similar for all G‐IG pairs, indicating no change in variability, even aspCO2‐radiative forcing and other boundary conditions changed on G‐IG timescales. Plio‐Pleistocene sea surface temperature (SST) distributions are similar to those from the Holocene, indicating WEP SSTs respond topCO2‐radiative forcing and associated feedbacks. In contrast, Plio‐Pleistocene subsurface temperature distributions suggest subsurface temperatures respond to changes in thermocline temperature and depth. We estimate tropical temperature sensitivity for the mid‐Pliocene (~3 Ma) using our individual foraminifera SST data set and a previously published high‐resolution boron isotope‐basedpCO2reconstruction. We find tropical temperature sensitivity was equal to, or less than, that of the Late Pleistocene.

 
more » « less
PAR ID:
10462856
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  
Publisher / Repository:
DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology
Volume:
34
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2572-4517
Page Range / eLocation ID:
p. 2-15
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract

    In the early Pleistocene, global temperature cycles predominantly varied with ~41‐kyr (obliquity‐scale) periodicity. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations likely played a role in these climate cycles; marine sediments provide an indirect geochemical means to estimate early Pleistocene CO2. Here we present a boron isotope‐based record of continuous high‐resolution surface ocean pH and inferred atmospheric CO2changes. Our results show that, within a window of time in the early Pleistocene (1.38–1.54 Ma), pCO2varied with obliquity, confirming that, analogous to late Pleistocene conditions, the carbon cycle and climate covaried at ~1.5 Ma. Pairing the reconstructed early Pleistocene pCO2amplitude (92 ± 13 μatm) with a comparably smaller global surface temperature glacial/interglacial amplitude (3.0 ± 0.5 K) yields a surface temperature change to CO2radiative forcing ratio ofS[CO2]~0.75 (±0.5) °C−1·W−1·m−2, as compared to the late PleistoceneS[CO2]value of ~1.75 (±0.6) °C−1·W−1·m−2. This direct comparison of pCO2and temperature implicitly incorporates the large ice sheet forcing as an internal feedback and is not directly applicable to future warming. We evaluate this result with a simple climate model and show that the presumably thinner, though extensive, northern hemisphere ice sheets would increase surface temperature sensitivity to radiative forcing. Thus, the mechanism to dampen actual temperature variability in the early Pleistocene more likely lies with Southern Ocean circulation dynamics or antiphase hemispheric forcing. We also compile this new carbon dioxide record with published Plio‐Pleistocene δ11B records using consistent boundary conditions and explore potential reasons for the discrepancy between Pliocene pCO2based on different planktic foraminifera.

     
    more » « less
  2. Abstract

    Effective climate sensitivity (EffCS), commonly estimated from model simulations with abrupt 4×CO2for 150 years, has been shown to depend on the CO2forcing level. To understand this dependency systematically, we performed a series of simulations with a range of abrupt CO2forcing in two climate models. Our results indicate that normalized EffCS values in these simulations are a non‐monotonic function of the CO2forcing, decreasing between 3× and 4×CO2in CESM1‐LE (2× and 3×CO2in GISS‐E2.1‐G) and increasing at higher CO2levels. The minimum EffCS value, caused by anomalously negative radiative feedbacks, arises mainly from sea‐surface temperature (SST) relative cooling in the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic. This cooling is associated with the formation of the North Atlantic Warming Hole and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation collapse under CO2forcing. Our findings imply that understanding changes in North Atlantic SST patterns is important for constraining near‐future and equilibrium global warming.

     
    more » « less
  3. Abstract

    The processes controlling idealized warming and cooling patterns are examined in 150-yr-long fully coupled Community Earth System Model, version 1 (CESM1), experiments under abrupt CO2forcing. By simulation end, 2 × CO2global warming was 20% larger than 0.5 × CO2global cooling. Not only was the absolute global effective radiative forcing ∼10% larger for 2 × CO2than for 0.5 × CO2, global feedbacks were also less negative for 2 × CO2than for 0.5 × CO2. Specifically, more positive shortwave cloud feedbacks led to more 2 × CO2global warming than 0.5 × CO2global cooling. Over high-latitude oceans, differences between 2 × CO2warming and 0.5 × CO2cooling were amplified by familiar linked positive surface albedo and lapse rate feedbacks associated with sea ice change. At low latitudes, 2 × CO2warming exceeded 0.5 × CO2cooling almost everywhere. Tropical Pacific cloud feedbacks amplified the following: 1) more fast warming than fast cooling in the west, and 2) slow pattern differences between 2 × CO2warming and 0.5 × CO2cooling in the east. Motivated to quantify cloud influence, a companion suite of experiments was run without cloud radiative feedbacks. Disabling cloud radiative feedbacks reduced the effective radiative forcing and surface temperature responses for both 2 × CO2and 0.5 × CO2. Notably, 20% more global warming than global cooling occurred regardless of whether cloud feedbacks were enabled or disabled. This surprising consistency resulted from the cloud influence on non-cloud feedbacks and circulation. With the exception of the tropical Pacific, disabling cloud feedbacks did little to change surface temperature response patterns including the large high-latitude responses driven by non-cloud feedbacks. The findings provide new insights into the regional processes controlling the response to greenhouse gas forcing, especially for clouds.

    Significance Statement

    We analyze the processing controlling idealized warming and cooling under abrupt CO2forcing using a modern and highly vetted fully coupled climate model. We were especially interested to compare simulations with and without cloud radiative feedbacks. Notably, 20% more global warming than global cooling occurred regardless of whether cloud feedbacks were enabled or disabled. This surprising consistency resulted from the cloud influence on forcing, non-cloud feedbacks, and circulation. With the exception of the tropical Pacific, disabling cloud feedbacks did little to change surface temperature response patterns including the large high-latitude responses driven by non-cloud feedbacks. The findings provide new insights into the regional processes controlling the response to greenhouse gas forcing, especially for clouds. When combined with estimates of cooling at the Last Glacial Maximum, the findings also help rule out large (4+ K) values of equilibrium climate sensitivity.

     
    more » « less
  4. Abstract

    The temperature of the subsurface water entrained into the surface mixed layer plays a key role in controlling the sea surface temperature (SST) and its interannual variability in the equatorial Pacific. In this paper, we combine a hyperbolic tangent function bounded by the warm pool SST and centered at the thermocline depth with a variable sharpness parameter to describe the time‐space evolutions of the subsurface temperature. Under simple approximations of the sharpness parameter, this concise expression becomes remarkably efficient in capturing the observed and climate‐model simulated subsurface temperature variability in terms of anomalies of the thermocline depth and SST of the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. The formulations for the subsurface temperature and thermocline sharpness developed in this work should be useful tools for evaluating and understanding the role of the thermocline feedback in ENSO behaviors in both theoretical and comprehensive climate models.

     
    more » « less
  5. Abstract

    The Mid‐Pleistocene Transition (MPT, 1,200–600 ka) marks the rapid expansion of Northern Hemisphere (NH) continental ice sheets and stronger precession pacing of glacial/interglacial cyclicity. Here, we investigate the relationship between thermocline depth in the central North Atlantic, subsurface northward heat transport and the initiation of the 100‐kyr cyclicity during the MPT. To reconstruct deep‐thermocline temperatures, we generated a Mg/Ca‐based temperature record of deep‐dwelling (∼800 m) planktonic foraminifera from mid‐latitude North Atlantic at Site U1313. This record shows phases of pronounced heat accumulation at subsurface levels during the mid‐MPT glacial driven by increased outflow of the Mediterranean Sea. Concurrent warming of the subtropical thermocline and subpolar surface waters indicates enhanced (subsurface) inter‐gyre transport of warm water to the subpolar North Atlantic, which provided moisture for ice‐sheet growth. Precession‐modulated variability in the northward transport of subtropical waters imprinted this orbital cyclicity into NH ice‐sheets after Marine Isotope Stage 24.

     
    more » « less