Sea Surface Temperature Record Research Articles

Holocene centennial variability in sea surface temperature and linkage with solar irradiance

The climate periodically fluctuates on various time scales, however, there remains a lack of consensus on the centennial-scale variabilities and associated driving force. A continuous high-resolution sea surface temperature (SST) record allows for the detection of centennial-scale fluctuations. This study presents a high-resolution SST record covering the last 10,000 years based on the analysis of the alkenone unsaturation index in marine sediment cores off the southwest coast of the Korean Peninsula. Alkenone SST's spectral and wavelet analysis revealed significant periodicities of 414, 190, 135, 102, and 89 years at a > 90% confidence level. These cycles exhibit extreme proximity to the solar activity cycles of 353, 206 (Suess/de Vries cycles), 130, and 104–87 years (Gleissberg cycles), suggesting that the multidecadal to centennial variations in SST are linked to solar forcing. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first high-resolution Holocene SST record that all solar activity cycles on centennial scale match, suggesting centennial-scale variability in the climate system and illustrating the role of solar activity on SST change in the mid-latitude region of the Northern Hemisphere.

Warmer western tropical South Atlantic during the Last Interglacial relative to the current interglacial period

The Last Interglacial (LIG, 129–116 thousand years ago) is an excellent case study for global warming scenarios and a target for proxy-model comparisons. The LIG global average sea surface temperature (SST) was ~0.5 °C higher than pre-industrial (PI). Contrary to the global average, tropical SST proxy compilations and model simulations show a negative anomaly in LIG SST relative to PI. Here, we present a LIG SST record from marine sediment core GL-1180 retrieved from the western tropical South Atlantic (WTSA). The SST record is based on Mg/Ca ratios of planktonic foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber (white). Our results indicate a warmer LIG in the WTSA relative to PI and Holocene conditions. We show that a positive LIG SST anomaly in tropical regions can be explained by polar sea ice loss during the LIG, which warms the ocean surface all the way into the tropics. The disagreement between proxy results and model simulations from the fourth phase of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project could result from uncertainties in our proxy for SST and/or limitations of numeric models in capturing transient forcings and feedbacks in Earth's climate system and imprecise boundary conditions. Additional studies are warranted to better constrain the LIG SST evolution in tropical regions.

JPSS VIIRS SST Reanalysis Version 3

The 3rd full-mission reanalysis (RAN3) of global sea surface temperature (SST) with a 750 m resolution at nadir is available from VIIRS instruments flown onboard two JPSS satellites: NPP (February 2012–present) and N20 (January 2018–present). Two SSTs, ‘subskin’ (sensitive to skin SST) and ‘depth’ (proxy for in situ SST at depth of 20 cm), were produced from brightness temperatures (BTs) in the VIIRS bands centered at 8.6, 11 and 12 µm during the daytime and an additional 3.7 µm band at night, using the NOAA Advanced Clear Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) enterprise SST system. The RAN3 dataset is fully archived at NASA JPL PO.DAAC and NOAA CoastWatch, and routinely supplemented in near real time (NRT) with a latency of a few hours. Delayed mode (DM) processing with a 2 months latency follows NRT, resulting in a more uniform science quality SST record. This paper documents and evaluates the performance of the VIIRS RAN3 dataset. Comparisons with in situ SSTs from drifters and tropical moorings (D+TM) as well as Argo floats (AFs) (both available from the NOAA iQuam system) show good agreement, generally within the NOAA specifications for accuracy (±0.2 K) and precision (0.6 K), in a clear-sky domain covering 18–20% of the global ocean. The nighttime SSTs compare with in situ data more closely, as expected due to the reduced diurnal thermocline. The daytime SSTs are also generally within NOAA specs but show some differences between the (D+TM) and AF validations as well as residual drift on the order of −0.1 K/decade. BT comparisons between two VIIRSs and MODIS-Aqua show good consistency in the 3.7 and 12 µm bands. The 11 µm band, while consistent between NPP and N20, shows residual drift with respect to MODIS-Aqua. Similar analyses of the 8.6 µm band are inconclusive, as the performance of the MODIS band 29 centered at 8.6 µm is degraded and unstable in time and cannot be used for comparisons.

Sea Surface Temperature and Salinity in Lombok Strait Reconstructed From Coral Sr/Ca and δ18O, 1962–2012

Coral geochemical tracers have been used in studies of the paleoclimatology and paleoceanography of the tropics and subtropics. We measured Sr/Ca and oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) in a coral sample collected from the southern part of Lombok Strait, a significant outlet of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) to the Indian Ocean, to reconstruct the historical record of sea surface temperature (SST) and seawater δ18O. Seawater δ18O can be used to approximate sea surface salinity (SSS) because it reflects the balance of evaporation and precipitation. The resulting time series reconstructed SST and SSS, covering the period 1962–2012, shows no clear trend of global warming, although the record includes a large cooling event (~4°C) during 1996–1997. Although neither SST nor SSS shows a systematic relationship with El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), weak but significant correlations are found partly. In addition, the coral data show signals of major IOD and El Niño events in 1994 and 1997, respectively, although climatic trends recorded in the coral are not consistent with those found along the Java-Sumatra coast. To evaluate other influences on the ITF in Lombok Strait, we compared our coral record with coral records from sites in the Java Sea, the southern part of Makassar Strait, and Ombai Strait. During the northwest monsoon (December–January–February), variations in SST and SSS at Lombok Strait site are similar to those at the Java Sea and southern Makassar sites for the period 1962–1995, which suggests that low-salinity water from the Java Sea is carried at least to the southern part of Makassar Strait where it suppresses the ITF upstream from Lombok Strait. However, the SST and SSS records differ at the three sites during the southeast monsoon (June–July–August), indicating that surface conditions in Lombok Strait vary separately from those in the Java Sea. In the longer term, although global warming has been widely identified in the Indonesian Seas, the coral record shows no clear warming trend in the southern part of Lombok Strait, where fluctuations in the ITF may be modulating the distribution of heat in the surface waters of the western Pacific and eastern Indian Ocean.

Human forager response to abrupt climate change at 8.2\xa0ka on the Atlantic coast of Europe

The cooling and drying associated with the so-called ‘8.2 ka event’ have long been hypothesized as having sweeping implications for human societies in the Early Holocene, including some of the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Atlantic Europe. Nevertheless, detailed ‘on-site’ records with which the impacts of broader climate changes on human-relevant environments can be explored have been lacking. Here, we reconstruct sea surface temperatures (SST) from δ18O values measured on subfossil topshells Phorcus lineatus exploited by the Mesolithic human groups that lived at El Mazo cave (N Spain) between 9 and 7.4 ka. Bayesian modelling of 65 radiocarbon dates, in combination with this δ18O data, provide a high-resolution seasonal record of SST, revealing that colder SST during the 8.2 ka event led to changes in the availability of different shellfish species. Intensification in the exploitation of molluscs by humans indicates demographic growth in these Atlantic coastal settings which acted as refugia during this cold event.

A comparison of orbital-resolution, Late Pleistocene Alkenone and foraminiferal assemblage-based sea surface temperature reconstructions from the Southwest Pacific

Global and regional reconstructions of past climate conditions often incorporate sea surface temperature (SST) estimates from multiple proxies because not every paleotemperature proxy is applicable in all geographic locations. This practice of assimilating estimates from different proxies in global or regional temperature syntheses makes the implicit assumption that estimates derived from different proxies can be meaningfully intercompared. However, evidence to support the validity of this assumption is limited. Using paleotemperature data from sediments collected from ODP Site 1125 in the Southwest Pacific, we conduct a ∼1 Myr, orbital-scale SST proxy comparison of a recently published alkenone-derived SST record with a previously published foraminiferal assemblage-based SST record. These alkenone and foraminiferal assemblage SST datasets show strong structural similarity and yield remarkably similar estimates for basic climate metrics, including mean, median, standard deviation, and range. Statistical analysis indicates that the correlation between the two SST records is highly significant. In the spectral domain, the records share the same dominant 100 kyr beat, are coherent and in phase with each other at this frequency, and have the same coherence and phase relationship with benthic foraminiferal δ18O. Results from this work demonstrate that these two proxies would yield very similar estimates for the paleoclimate metrics most commonly used in empirical paleoclimate reconstructions that seek to document the evolution of climate over this interval. However, significant disparities between SST estimates derived from the two proxies exist for some time periods, particularly during glacial and interglacial extrema. This comparison suggests that treating estimates from these proxies as equivalent in studies that focus on short time windows (e.g. a few thousand to tens-of-thousands of years), particularly in investigations that seek to characterize glacial or interglacial extrema, could be potentially problematic. However, the sensitive location of Site 1125, just north of the Subtropical Front, likely accentuates the difference between temperature estimates from these proxies, which may be attenuated in other oceanographic settings. We attribute the discrepancies between the two SST records to two main causes: seasonal leakages of cold water across the Subtropical Front during glacial extrema and differential seasonality of maximum alkenone and foraminiferal production.

Maastrichtian–Rupelian paleoclimates in the southwest Pacific – a critical re-evaluation of biomarker paleothermometry and dinoflagellate cyst paleoecology at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1172

Abstract. Sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions based on isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (isoGDGT) distributions from the Eocene southwest (SW) Pacific Ocean are unequivocally warmer than can be reconciled with state-of-the-art fully coupled climate models. However, the SST signal preserved in sedimentary archives can be affected by contributions of additional isoGDGT sources. Methods now exist to identify and possibly correct for overprinting effects on the isoGDGT distribution in marine sediments. Here, we use the current proxy insights to (re-)assess the reliability of the isoGDGT-based SST signal in 69 newly analyzed and 242 reanalyzed sediments at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1172 (East Tasman Plateau, Australia) following state-of-the-art chromatographic techniques. We compare our results with paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatologic reconstructions based on dinoflagellate cysts. The resulting ∼ 130 kyr resolution Maastrichtian–Oligocene SST record based on the TetraEther indeX of tetraethers with 86 carbon atoms (TEX86) confirms previous conclusions of anomalous warmth in the early Eocene SW Pacific and remarkably cool conditions during the mid-Paleocene. Dinocyst diversity and assemblages show a strong response to the local SST evolution, supporting the robustness of the TEX86 record. Soil-derived branched GDGTs stored in the same sediments are used to reconstruct mean annual air temperature (MAAT) of the nearby land using the Methylation index of Branched Tetraethers with 5-methyl bonds (MBT'5me) proxy. MAAT is consistently lower than SST during the early Eocene, independent of the calibration chosen. General trends in SST and MAAT are similar, except for (1) an enigmatic absence of MAAT rise during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum and Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum, and (2) a subdued middle–late Eocene MAAT cooling relative to SST. Both dinocysts and GDGT signals suggest a mid-shelf depositional environment with strong river runoff during the Paleocene–early Eocene progressively becoming more marine thereafter. This trend reflects gradual subsidence and more pronounced wet/dry seasons in the northward-drifting Australian hinterland, which may also explain the subdued middle Eocene MAAT cooling relative to that of SST. The overall correlation between dinocyst assemblages, marine biodiversity and SST changes suggests that temperature exerted a strong influence on the surface-water ecosystem. Finally, we find support for a potential temperature control on compositional changes of branched glycerol monoalkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGMGTs) in marine sediments. It is encouraging that a critical evaluation of the GDGT signals confirms that most of the generated data are reliable. However, this also implies that the high TEX86-based SSTs for the Eocene SW Pacific and the systematic offset between absolute TEX86-based SST and MBT'5me-based MAAT estimates remain without definitive explanation.

The Yorktown Formation: Improved Stratigraphy, Chronology, and Paleoclimate Interpretations from the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain

The Yorktown Formation records paleoclimate conditions along the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain during the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period (3.264 to 3.025 Ma), a climate interval of the Pliocene in some ways analogous to near future climate projections. To gain insight into potential near future changes, we investigated Yorktown Formation outcrops and cores in southeastern Virginia, refining the stratigraphic framework. We analyzed 485 samples for alkenone-based sea surface temperature (SST) and productivity estimates from the Holland and Dory cores, an outcrop at Morgarts Beach, Virginia, and the lectostratotype of the Yorktown Formation at Rushmere, Virginia, and analyzed planktonic foraminferal assemblage data from the type section. Using the structure of the SST record, we improved the chronology of the Yorktown Formation by establishing the maximum age ranges of the Rushmere (3.3–3.2 Ma) and Morgarts Beach (3.2–3.15 Ma) Members. SST values for these members average ~26 °C, corroborating existing sclerochronological data. Increasing planktonic foraminifer abundance, productivity, and species diversity parallel increasing SST over the MIS M2/M1 transition. These records constitute the greatest temporal concentration of paleoecological estimates within the Yorktown Formation, aiding our understanding of western North Atlantic temperature patterns, seasonality and ocean circulation during this interval. We provide a chronologic framework for future studies analyzing ecological responses to profound climate change.

Metop First Generation AVHRR FRAC SST Reanalysis Version 1

The first full-mission global AVHRR FRAC sea surface temperature (SST) dataset with a nominal 1.1 km resolution at nadir was produced from three Metop First Generation (FG) satellites: Metop-A (2006-on), -B (2012-on) and -C (2018-on), using the NOAA Advanced Clear Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) SST enterprise system. Historical reprocessing (‘Reanalysis-1’, RAN1) starts at the beginning of each mission and continues into near-real time (NRT). ACSPO generates two SST products, one with global regression (GR; highly sensitive to skin SST), and another one with piecewise regression (PWR; proxy for depth SST) algorithms. Small residual effects of orbital and sensor instabilities on SST retrievals are mitigated by retraining the regression coefficients daily, using matchups with drifting and tropical moored buoys within moving time windows. In RAN, the training windows are centered at the processed day. In NRT, the same size windows are employed but delayed in time, ending four to ten days prior to the processed day. Delayed-mode RAN reprocessing follows the NRT with a two-month lag, resulting in a higher quality and a more consistent SST record. In addition to its completeness, the newly created Metop-FG RAN1 SST dataset shows very close agreement with in situ data (including the fully independent Argo floats), well within the NOAA specifications for accuracy (global mean bias; ±0.2 K) and precision (global standard deviation; 0.6 K) in a ~20% clear-sky domain (percent of clear-sky SST pixels to the total of ice-free ocean). All performance statistics are stable in time, and consistent across the three platforms. The Metop-FG RAN1 data set is archived at the NASA JPL PO.DAAC and NOAA NCEI. This paper documents the newly created dataset and evaluates its performance.

A 1‐Million‐Year Record of Environmental Change in the Central Mediterranean Sea From Organic Molecular Proxies

AbstractThe Mediterranean Sea is particularly sensitive to climate oscillations and represents a key location to study past climatic and oceanographic changes. One valuable source of paleoceanographic information is through molecular biomarkers in deep sea sediments. This approach has been applied in a number of studies in this basin, but only covering the most recent glacial/interglacial cycles. Here we present, for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea, a molecular biomarker record from the Strait of Sicily that covers the last million years until the present, almost continuously. We present data on alkenone derived index sea surface temperatures (SST) and provide insights on the evolution of the phytoplankton community composition and terrestrial inputs through the analysis of the concentrations of alkenones, brassicasterol and long‐chain alcohols. The ‐SST record followed a climatic evolution modulated by glacial/interglacial cycles with a marked increase in the 100 kyr‐amplitude of the glacial cycles at ∼430 ka, coincident with the Mid‐Brunhes transition. In addition, SSTs were consistently higher compared with other records in the western Mediterranean, indicative of the progressive warming that surface waters experience along their transit from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Central Mediterranean. Regarding the concentrations of alkenones and brassicasterol, they displayed distinct alternate peaks, some of them coeval with the deposition of sapropels. This suggests that different environmental and oceanographic conditions characterized each sapropel which, together with changes in terrestrial inputs and the degree of oligotrophy, induced the alternate proliferation of coccolithophores and diatoms.

Climatic Drivers of Deglacial SST Variability in the Eastern Pacific

AbstractWe explore the response of northeastern Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) to deglacial (16–7 ka) climate variability as recorded in ‐based SST reconstructions spanning 65°N to 10°S. Included in the analysis is a new 23 kyr SST record from core NH8P from the northwest Mexican Margin. We isolate spatiotemporal patterns in regional SSTs with trend empirical orthogonal function (TEOF) analysis. The dominant TEOF mode reflects deglacial warming associated with rising . Tropical and subtropical SSTs correlated most strongly with this mode, suggesting that the thermodynamic response of the tropical eastern Pacific to greenhouse gas forcing was the dominant driver of regional SST change during deglaciation. The second TEOF mode reflects millennial‐scale variability and is most strongly expressed in subpolar SSTs. The synchronous timing between North Pacific and North Atlantic SST oscillations is evidence for the rapid transmission of millennial‐scale climate perturbations between the basins, likely through an atmospheric teleconnection. SSTs at NH8P have no correlation with either leading TEOF mode as there is minimal change in SST at this site after 20 ka. A model simulation of the LGM indicates that glacial cooling was muted in much of the Eastern Pacific Warm Pool (EPWP), in which NH8P lies, due to reductions in latent heat flux. This suggests that the wind‐evaporation‐SST feedback was responsible for the attenuation of EPWP cooling. Overall, this study highlights the distinct latitudinal trends in the Pacific's response to deglaciation.

Evolution of Sea Surface Temperature in the Southern Mid‐latitudes From Late Oligocene Through Early Miocene

AbstractLarge Antarctic ice volume changes characterized the middle to Late Oligocene and the first million years of climate evolution during the Miocene. However, the sea surface temperature (SST) evolution over this period remains poorly constrained, as only a few records from contrasting proxies are available. In this study, we present a long‐term alkenone‐derived SST record from sediments drilled by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) at Site 1168 in the west Tasmanian Sea spanning 29.8 Ma to 16.7 Ma. The SST record highlight that the long‐term warming in the Late Oligocene linked to the end of the Middle Oligocene Glacial Interval can be recognized also at mid‐to‐high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Warmer average temperatures (25.5°C) characterize the period from 24.6 to 22 Ma; average temperatures then decrease by 1°C–2°C into the Miocene and stabilize by 20.1 Ma. The reconstructed temperatures are highly variable in the warm Late Oligocene waters, and more stable and slightly colder in the Early to Middle Miocene. We confirm that this temperature trend is not an artifact of the latitudinal drift of the site, as the temperature anomaly relative to the modern water temperature at the paleolocation confirms the SST trends of the Oligocene. This is the first alkenone‐derived continuous record to reproduce the long‐term Oligocene climate trend previously interpreted from the benthic δ18O, which recorded a warming and/or reduction in ice volume from the Middle Oligocene Glacial Interval through the latest Oligocene.

Middle Miocene Temperature and Productivity Evolution at a Northeast Atlantic Shelf Site (IODP U1318, Porcupine Basin): Global and Regional Changes

AbstractWe present a high‐resolution multiproxy middle Miocene sea surface temperature (SST) and productivity (SSP) reconstruction of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Site U1318, from the upper slope edge (∼400 m water depth) of the Porcupine Basin continental margin, eastern North Atlantic Ocean. Biomarker and dinoflagellate cyst proxies reveal warm and mostly stratified waters during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO) that cooled ∼3°C across the Miocene Climate Transition (MCT). The organic biomarker (TEX86 and ) paleothermometers document a series of 11 transient cooling events (CEs), superimposed on the long‐term climate evolution. These CEs are associated with increases in cold‐water dinocysts and correlate to global benthic δ18O shifts, including the Mi‐2, Mi‐3, and Mi‐4 events. Most CEs are also associated with increases in primary productivity. A prolonged interval of high SSP between ∼13.8 and 13.6 Ma supports the idea that carbon production (and burial) in shallow areas represents a feedback mechanism contributing to long‐term atmospheric CO2 decline and cooling during the MCT. SST comparison in three North Atlantic sites (Azores Site 608, Porcupine Basin Site U1318, and Rockall Plateau Site 982) reveals that MCO SSTs are much warmer at Site 608 than at the other two sites. The low‐resolution SST record of Site 982 shows no decrease in temperature around the MCT. This may be linked to contemporaneous tectonic changes in the Tethys, Central American, and Arctic Seaways impacting local ocean circulation, superimposed on global drivers of climate change.

Reef-building Pacific oysters record seasonal variations in water mass-properties of tidal basins from the Central Wadden Sea (North Sea)

High-resolution proxy records are needed to evaluate models simulating past, present and future climatic conditions. Before such records can be reliably employed, calibration studies have to be conducted to assess the confidence intervals of the proxies. Here, we use shells of the fast growing Pacific oyster Magallana gigas from the Central Wadden Sea, North Sea, a temperate barrier island-backbarrier tidal flat-salt marsh system with large seasonal changes of water mass-properties, for the calibration of geochemical proxies. M. gigas represents a non-native invasive species that rapidly develops oyster reefs. Calcite shells of two specimens from the intertidal and subtidal zones were sampled in high resolution yielding sub-monthly data sets. The time period represented in the shell, based on δ18O age modeling, was estimated at 8–10 years and the growth of the shells was restricted from (late) spring to (early) autumn of each year. Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios of the intertidal and subtidal specimens show similar seasonal patterns. Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios are investigated as high-resolution sea surface temperature (SST) proxies. Important ontogenetic effects (i.e., increasing time-averaging with increasing age) as well as inter-specimen variability are discussed as limiting factors for the proxy development. Intertidal Mg/Ca ratios show only a significant correlation to the high-resolution SST record of the Central Wadden Sea when the early ontogenetic stage is considered. Sr/Ca ratios were comparable in terms of absolute values and amplitudes to those of M. gigas in the Northern Wadden Sea, but amplitudes were decreasing with increasing age. These findings seriously hamper the application of Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca for reliable palaeotemperature reconstructions regardless of ontogenetic stage. The Mn/Ca ratios were investigated as proxy for Mn cycling in tidal basins, where it is interrelated with seasonal changes in primary production. In addition to the generally observed seasonal variability of the Mn/Ca oyster records, the subtidal Mn/Ca is significantly elevated compared to intertidal Mn/Ca. The subtidal Mn/Ca offset likely reflects differences in Mn cycling in tidal settings and could, therefore, serve in the palaeorecord as indicator to differentiate inter- and subtidal habitats in the same embedding sedimentary facies. This habitat effect has to be considered as an important factor besides environmental change when interpreting the high-resolution proxy record of fossil oysters.

Role of the Tropical Atlantic for the Interhemispheric Heat Transport During the Last Deglaciation

AbstractDuring the last deglaciation abrupt millennial‐scale perturbations of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation massively altered the interhemispheric heat distribution affecting, for example, continental ice volume and hydroclimate. If and how the related cross‐equatorial heat transport was controlled by the interplay between the southward‐flowing Brazil Current (BC) and northward‐flowing North Brazil Current (NBC) remains controversial. To assess the role of tropical heat transport during the last deglaciation, we obtained a high‐resolution foraminiferal Mg/Ca‐based sea surface temperature (SST) record from the BC domain at 21.5°S. The data reveal a yet undocumented warming of at least 4.6°C of the BC during Heinrich Stadial 1 at ∼16 ka indicating massive oceanic heat accumulation in the tropical South Atlantic. Simultaneously, a strongly diminished NBC prevented the release of this excess heat into the northern tropics. The observed magnitude of heat accumulation substantially exceeds numerical model simulations, stressing the need to further scrutinize atmospheric and oceanic heat transport during extreme climatic events.

Sea Surface Temperatures in the Indian Sub‐Antarctic Southern Ocean for the Last Four Interglacial Periods

AbstractInterglacial periods (IG) offer an opportunity to understand natural climate variability and its drivers under potential warmer‐than‐present conditions. However, sea‐surface temperature (SST) records from the Southern Ocean (SO) are limited. The first SST record from the Sub‐Antarctic western Indian SO covering the last four IGs suggest warmer conditions during Marine Isotope Stage 5e than 9e, 7e, and Holocene. Each IG presents two (early and late) warm phases interrupted by a cooling, except Holocene that experienced a continuous warming. The early warm phase might be attributable to changes in northern summer insolation with feedbacks from Northern and Southern Hemisphere ice‐sheets, global oceanic circulation, and the carbon cycle. Conversely, the late warm phase might be due to changes in Southern Hemisphere summer insolation. Larger millennial‐scale SST variability for IGs older than Holocene could be attributed to a less stable thermohaline circulation, which resulted in more variable heat redistribution between the two hemispheres.

A composite Pliocene record of sea surface temperature in the central Mediterranean (Capo Rossello composite section – South Sicily)

The Pliocene (5.33–2.58 Ma) was the last period in the Earth's history when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were similar to today (~400 ppm) and global mean temperatures were significantly warmer. In the Mediterranean, the Pliocene, and more particularly the Piacenzian (3.6–2.58 Ma), has been intensively studied but less is known about the Early Pliocene climate. This study aims at filling this gap with a high-resolution alkenone-derived sea surface temperature (SST) record of the Zanclean epoch obtained from the composite Capo Rossello section (South Sicily). This new dataset is combined with the previously published records of Beltran et al. (2011), Herbert et al. (2015) and Herbert et al. (2018), to document SST changes during major regional and global oceanographic re-organizations such as the connection with the Atlantic basin. Our SST record highlights the key transition between the warm and unstable conditions during the Zanclean and the more stable and cooler Piacenzian, around 3.8 Ma ago. We suggest that this transition results from the intensification of the Mediterranean outflow and the establishment of the Northern Hemisphere glaciation. The combined effect of these mechanisms would be responsible for cooler, more seasonal and possibly dryer conditions in the Mediterranean.

One and a Half Million Yearlong Aridity During the Middle Eocene in North‐West China Linked to a Global Cooling Episode

AbstractThe Eocene record of substantial aridification near Tibet was reported to mimic the global climate cooling trend, overwriting the previously proposed dominant role of the Tibetan Plateau uplift in the aridification (Li et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467‐018‐05415‐x). Here we present new paleoclimate data from the red clay sequence deposited between 40 and 50 Ma in Altun Shan at the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. After building an age model using a compilation of magnetostratigraphy and cyclostratigraphy, we demonstrate that our record of magnetic susceptibility in the Altun Shan red clay exhibits variations linked to eccentricity cycles. Our age model allows us to estimate the age of eight short geomagnetic events, cryprochrons, in Altun Shan. Further we show that the aridification interval in Altun Shan coincides with (i) a cooling event recorded in the global oxygen isotope record, (ii) a sea surface temperature record on the east Tasmanian plateau, and (iii) an aridity record in the surrounding sedimentary basins of Central Asia. The middle Eocene aridity and cooling reached its maximum 45.5‐44 Ma.

Combining Statistical, Physical, and Historical Evidence to Improve Historical Sea-Surface Temperature Records

Reconstructing past sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) from historical measurements containing more than 100 million ship-based observations taken by over 500,000 ships from more than 150 countries using a variety of methodologies creates a wide range of historical, scientific, and statistical challenges. The reconstruction of historical SSTs for studying climate change is particularly challenging because SST measurements are uncertain and contain systematic biases of order 0.1^\circC to 1^\circC—these systematic biases are in the range of the historical global warming signal of approximately 1^\circC. The biases are complicated and have generally been addressed using simplified corrections. In this review, I introduce a history of SST observations, review a statistical method developed for quantifying SST biases, and illustrate scientific insights obtained from adjusted SSTs. This article also documents the scientific journey of my Ph.D. work. As a result, I report personal stories on both successes, difficulties, and setbacks along the way. The statistical method for correcting SSTs (i.e., a linear-mixed-effect intercomparison framework) depends on identifying systematic offsets between intercomparable groups of SST observations. Combining estimated offsets with physical and historical evidence has allowed for correcting discrepancies associated with SSTs, including the North Atlantic warming twice as fast as the North Pacific in the early 20th century and anomalously warm SSTs during World War II. Corrections also permit better hindcasting of Atlantic hurricanes. I conclude with some discussion on how the SST records might be further improved. Given the importance of SSTs for understanding historical changes in climate, I hope that this review can help others appreciate challenges that are present and spark some interest and ideas for further improvement.

Development of the Leeuwin Current on the northwest shelf of Australia through the Pliocene-Pleistocene period

Although the Leeuwin Current (LC) is thought to play a pivotal role in climatic and oceanic systems of the western Australian region, how the LC developed through the Pliocene-Pleistocene period remains elusive. Here we used biomarker records to reconstruct variations of temperatures and primary productivity on the northwest shelf of Australia over the last 6 million years. Since ∼1.2 million years ago (Ma), our sea surface temperature record indicates progressive warming, with temperature values comparable to those in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, in contrast with the long-term global cooling trend. The regional surface warming was accompanied by suppressed primary productivity, together indicating prevailing warm, low-salinity, nutrient-deficient surface water, and thus a stronger LC since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. During 4–1.2 Ma, greater surface temperature gradient between the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool and the northwest shelf of Australia and higher primary productivity seem to suggest a generally weaker LC. Warmer temperatures and lower productivity suggest a plausible existence of the LC during 6–4 Ma, but more work is required to confirm this. Impact of sea level and the Indonesian Throughflow on the LC strength may exist, but did not dominate through the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, considering different variation patterns among them. We propose the stronger LC after ∼1.2 Ma was more likely triggered by enhanced atmospheric circulation. Although the increased LC after ∼1.2 Ma may have potentially brought additional moisture to the Australian continent during the interglacial periods, it has not overturned the long-term drying trend through the Pliocene-Pleistocene period.