Orbital variations as a major driver of climate and biome distribution during the greenhouse to icehouse transition.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies suggest increasing sensitivity to orbital variations across the Eocene-Oligocene greenhouse to icehouse climate transition. However, climate simulations and paleoenvironmental studies mostly provide snapshots of the past climate, therefore overlooking the role of this short-term variability in driving major environmental changes and possibly biasing model-data comparisons. We address this problem by performing numerical simulations describing the end-members of eccentricity, obliquity, and precession. The orbitally induced biome variability obtained in our simulations allows to reconcile previous apparent mismatch between models and paleobotanical compilations. We show that precession-driven intermittent monsoon-like climate may have taken place during the Eocene, resulting

SUBMITTER: Tardif D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8535791 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature