Description: Changes in ocean gateway configuration can induce basin‐scale rearrangements in ocean current characteristics. However, there is large uncertainty in the relative timing of the Oligocene/Miocene subsidence histories of the Greenland‐Scotland Ridge (GSR) and the Fram Strait (FS). By using a climate model, we investigate the temperature and salinity changes in response to the subsidence of these two key ocean gateways during early to middle Miocene. For a singular subsidence of the GSR, we detect warming and a salinity increase in the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean. As convection sites shift to the north of Iceland, North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) is formed at cooler temperatures. The associated deep ocean cooling and upwelling of deep waters to the Southern Ocean surface can cause a cooling in the southern high latitudes. These characteristic responses to the GSR deepening are independent of the FS being shallow or deep. An isolated subsidence of the FS gateway for a deep GSR shows less pronounced warming and salinity increase in the Nordic Seas. Arctic temperatures remain unaltered, but a stronger salinity increase is detected, which further increases the density of NADW. The increase in salinity enhances the contribution of NADW to the abyssal ocean at the expense of the colder southern source water component. These relative changes largely counteract each other and cause a negligible warming in the upwelling regions of the Southern Ocean.

Description: There is an increasing need to understand the pre-Quaternary warm climates, how climate–vegetation interactions functioned in the past, and how we can use this information to understand the present. Here we report vegetation modelling results for the Late Miocene (11–7 Ma) to study the mechanisms of vegetation dynamics and the role of different forcing factors that influence the spatial patterns of vegetation coverage. One of the key uncertainties is the atmospheric concentration of CO2 during past climates. Estimates for the last 20 million years range from 280 to 500 ppm. We simulated Late Miocene vegetation using two plausible CO2 concentrations, 280 ppm CO2 and 450 ppm CO2, with a dynamic global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) driven by climate input from a coupled AOGCM (Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model). The simulated vegetation was compared to existing plant fossil data for the whole Northern Hemisphere. For the comparison we developed a novel approach that uses information of the relative dominance of different plant functional types (PFTs) in the palaeobotanical data to provide a quantitative estimate of the agreement between the simulated and reconstructed vegetation. Based on this quantitative assessment we find that pre-industrial CO2 levels are largely consistent with the presence of seasonal temperate forests in Europe (suggested by fossil data) and open vegetation in North America (suggested by multiple lines of evidence). This suggests that during the Late Miocene the CO2 levels have been relatively low, or that other factors that are not included in the models maintained the seasonal temperate forests and open vegetation.

Description: In order to account for coupled climate–soil processes, we have developed a soil scheme which is asynchronously coupled to a comprehensive climate model with dynamic vegetation. This scheme considers vegetation as the primary control of changes in physical soil characteristics. We test the scheme for a warmer (mid-Holocene) and colder (Last Glacial Maximum) climate relative to the preindustrial climate. We find that the computed changes in physical soil characteristics lead to significant amplification of global climate anomalies, representing a positive feedback. The inclusion of the soil feedback yields an extra surface warming of 0.24 °C for the mid-Holocene and an additional global cooling of 1.07 °C for the Last Glacial Maximum. Transition zones such as desert–savannah and taiga–tundra exhibit a pronounced response in the model version with dynamic soil properties. Energy balance model analyses reveal that our soil scheme amplifies the temperature anomalies in the mid-to-high northern latitudes via changes in the planetary albedo and the effective longwave emissivity. As a result of the modified soil treatment and the positive feedback to climate, part of the underestimated mid-Holocene temperature response to orbital forcing can be reconciled in the model.

Description: The last deglaciation is one of the best constrained global-scale climate changes documented by climate archives. Nevertheless, understanding of the underlying dynamics is still limited, especially with respect to abrupt climate shifts and associated changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) during glacial and deglacial periods. A fundamental issue is how to obtain an appropriate climate state at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 000 yr before present, 21 ka BP) that can be used as an initial condition for deglaciation. With the aid of a comprehensive climate model, we found that initial ocean states play an important role on the equilibrium timescale of the simulated glacial ocean. Independent of the initialization, the climatological surface characteristics are similar and quasi-stationary, even when trends in the deep ocean are still significant, which provides an explanation for the large spread of simulated LGM ocean states among the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project phase 2 (PMIP2) models. Accordingly, we emphasize that caution must be taken when alleged quasi-stationary states, inferred on the basis of surface properties, are used as a reference for both model inter-comparison and data model comparison. The simulated ocean state with the most realistic AMOC is characterized by a pronounced vertical stratification, in line with reconstructions. Hosing experiments further suggest that the response of the glacial ocean is dependent on the ocean background state, i.e. only the state with robust stratification shows an overshoot behavior in the North Atlantic. We propose that the salinity stratification represents a key control on the AMOC pattern and its transient response to perturbations. Furthermore, additional experiments suggest that the stratified deep ocean formed prior to the LGM during a time of minimum obliquity (~ 27 ka BP). This indicates that changes in the glacial deep ocean already occur before the last deglaciation. In combination, these findings represent a new paradigm for the LGM and the last deglaciation, which challenges the conventional evaluation of glacial and deglacial AMOC changes based on an ocean state derived from 21 ka BP boundary conditions.

Description: Cenozoic climate changes have been linked to tectonic activity and variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Here we present Miocene and Pliocene sensitivity experiments performed with the climate model COSMOS. The experiments contain changes with respect to paleogeography, ocean gateway configuration, and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, as well as a range of vertical mixing coefficients in the ocean. For the Mid-Miocene, we show that the impact of ocean mixing on surface temperature is comparable to the effect of the possible range in reconstructed CO2 concentrations. In combination with stronger vertical mixing, relatively moderate CO2-concentrations of 450 ppmv enable global mean surface, deep-water and meridional temperature characteristics representative of Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) reconstructions. The Miocene climate shows a reduced meridional temperature gradient and reduced seasonality. In the case of enhanced mixing, surface and deep ocean temperatures show significant warming of up to 5-10°C and an Arctic temperature anomaly of more than 12°C. In the Pliocene simulations, the impact of vertical mixing and CO2 is less important for the deep ocean, which we interpret as a different sensitivity dependence on the background state and mixed layer dynamics. We find a significant reduction in surface albedo and effective emissivity for either a high level of atmospheric CO2 or increased vertical mixing. Our mixing sensitivity experiments provide a warm deep ocean via ocean heat uptake. We propose that the mixing hypothesis can be tested by reconstructions of the thermocline and seasonal paleoclimate data indicating a lower seasonality relative to today.