Climate transition at the Eocene-Oligocene influenced by bathymetric changes to the Atlantic-Arctic oceanic gateways.

ABSTRACT: The Eocene–Oligocene Transition (∼33.9 Ma) marks the largest step transformation within the Cenozoic cooling trend and is characterized by a sudden growth of the Antarctic ice sheets, cooling of the interior ocean, and the establishment of strong meridional temperature gradients. Here we examine the climatic impact of oceanic gateway changes at the Eocene–Oligocene Transition by implementing detailed paleogeographic reconstructions with realistic paleobathymetric models for the Atlantic–Arctic basins in a state-of-the-art earth system model (the Norwegian Earth System Model [NorESM-F]). We demonstrate that the warm Eocene climate is highly sensitive to depth variations of the Greenland–Scotland Ridge and the proto–Fram Strait as they control the freshwater leakage from the Arctic to the No

SUBMITTER: Straume EO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9169914 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature