Pliocene Warmth, Polar Amplification, and Stepped Pleistocene Cooling Recorded in NE Arctic Russia
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Material Information

Title:
Pliocene Warmth, Polar Amplification, and Stepped Pleistocene Cooling Recorded in NE Arctic Russia
Series Title:
Science Magazine Volume 340
Creator:
Julie Brigham-Grette
Martin Melles
Pavel Minyuk
Andrei Andreev
Pavel Tarasov
Robert DeConto
Sebastian Koenig
Norbert Nowaczyk
Volker Wennrich
Peter Rosen
Eeva Haltia
Tim Cook
Catalina Gebhardt
Carsten Meyer-Jacob
Jeff Snyder
Ulrike Herzschuh
Publisher:
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Publication Date:
Language:
English

Notes

Abstract:
Understanding the evolution of Arctic polar climate from the protracted warmth of the middle Pliocene into the earliest glacial cycles in the Northern Hemisphere has been hindered by the lack of continuous, highly resolved Arctic time series. Evidence from Lake El’gygytgyn, in northeast (NE) Arctic Russia, shows that 3.6 to 3.4 million years ago, summer temperatures were ~8°C warmer than today, when the partial pressure of CO2 was ~400 parts per million. Multiproxy evidence suggests extreme warmth and polar amplification during the middle Pliocene, sudden stepped cooling events during the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition, and warmer than present Arctic summers until ~2.2 million years ago, after the onset of Northern Hemispheric glaciation. Our data are consistent with sea-level records and other proxies indicating that Arctic cooling was insufficient to support large-scale ice sheets until the early Pleistocene.

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Source Institution:
Florida International University
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