Multiproxy Reconstruction of Pliocene North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures and Implications for Rainfall in North Africa

Abstract

AbstractWetter conditions in the African Sahel during the Pliocene (5.3–2.6 Ma) likely played an important role in hominid evolution and may be explained by warm North Atlantic sea‐surface temperatures (SSTs), similar to the modern warm phase of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO). We reconstruct Pliocene North Atlantic (2°S to 60°N) SSTs through a multiproxy reduced‐dimension methodology that combines two new foraminiferal (Trilobatus sacculifer) Mg/Ca‐based SST records from Ocean Drilling Program sites in the northwestern Atlantic (Site 997) and Gulf of Mexico (Site 625) with previously published multi‐proxy SST records from seven additional Atlantic sites. Our Pliocene reconstructions indicate that the North Atlantic was overall warmer than the comparison period (0–0.5 Ma) with the most extreme warming occurring in the tropical and eastern subtropical North Atlantic and in the Labrador Sea. Furthermore, the mean state of North Atlantic warming at 5 Ma resembles that of the modern warm phase of the AMO with average SST anomalies of 3.8°C ± 0.5°C in the AMO region. With that reconstructed index, along with reconstructed El Niño‐like eastern Tropical Pacific SSTs from our previous research, we reconstruct rainfall over the Pliocene North Africa, covering the Sahara‐Sahel region and the Megalake Chad Basin and find up to twice the rainfall of that today. We surmise that this increased precipitation rate, along with other aiding land and sub‐surface processes, sustained Megalake Chad.