IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v429y2004i6989d10.1038_nature02567.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional climate shifts caused by gradual global cooling in the Pliocene epoch

Author

Listed:
  • Ana Christina Ravelo

    (University of California)

  • Dyke H. Andreasen

    (University of California
    Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences)

  • Mitchell Lyle

    (Boise State University)

  • Annette Olivarez Lyle

    (Boise State University)

  • Michael W. Wara

    (University of California)

Abstract

The Earth's climate has undergone a global transition over the past four million years, from warm conditions with global surface temperatures about 3 °C warmer than today, smaller ice sheets and higher sea levels to the current cooler conditions. Tectonic changes and their influence on ocean heat transport have been suggested as forcing factors for that transition, including the onset of significant Northern Hemisphere glaciation ∼2.75 million years ago, but the ultimate causes for the climatic changes are still under debate. Here we compare climate records from high latitudes, subtropical regions and the tropics, indicating that the onset of large glacial/interglacial cycles did not coincide with a specific climate reorganization event at lower latitudes. The regional differences in the timing of cooling imply that global cooling was a gradual process, rather than the response to a single threshold or episodic event as previously suggested. We also find that high-latitude climate sensitivity to variations in solar heating increased gradually, culminating after cool tropical and subtropical upwelling conditions were established two million years ago. Our results suggest that mean low-latitude climate conditions can significantly influence global climate feedbacks.

Suggested Citation

  • Ana Christina Ravelo & Dyke H. Andreasen & Mitchell Lyle & Annette Olivarez Lyle & Michael W. Wara, 2004. "Regional climate shifts caused by gradual global cooling in the Pliocene epoch," Nature, Nature, vol. 429(6989), pages 263-267, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6989:d:10.1038_nature02567
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02567
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02567
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature02567?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shlomy Vainer & Ari Matmon & Yoav Ben Dor & Eric P. Verrecchia & Frank Eckardt, 2022. "Eolian chronology reveals causal links between tectonics, climate, and erg generation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Tieniu Wu & Huaqing Wu & Henry Lin & Tiantian Yang & Xiaoyang Wu & Yi Jie & Pei Tian, 2020. "Climate Change and Vegetation Evolution during the Transition from Marine Isotope Stage 5 to 4 Based on Two Typical Profiles at the Southern Chinese Loess Plateau," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Domingo Lago-Barcia & Marcio Bernardino DaSilva & Luis Americo Conti & Fernando Carbayo, 2020. "Areas of endemism of land planarians (Platyhelminthes: Tricladida) in the Southern Atlantic Forest," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-24, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6989:d:10.1038_nature02567. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.