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Detection of significant climatic precession variability in early Pleistocene glacial cycles
Despite having a large influence on summer insolation, climatic precession is thought to account for little variance in early Pleistocene proxies of ice volume and deep-water temperature. Various mechanisms have been suggested to account for the dearth of precession variability, including meridional insolation gradients, interhemispheric cancellation of ice-volume changes, and antiphasing between the duration and intensity of summer insolation. We employ a method termed Empirical Nonlinear Orbital
Fitting (ENOF) to estimate the amplitudes of obliquity and precession forcing in early Pleistocene proxies and their respective leads or lags relative to the timing of orbital variations. Analysis of a high-resolution North Atlantic benthic δ18O record, comprising data from IODP sites U1308 and
U1313, indicates a significantly larger precession contribution than previously recognized, with an average precession-to-obliquity amplitude ratio of 0.51 (0.30-0.76 95% confidence interval) in the
rate-of-change of δ18O between 3 and 1 Ma. Averaged when eccentricity exceeds 0.05, this ratio rises to an average of 1.18 (0.84-1.53). Additional support for precession’s importance in the early Pleistocene comes from its estimated amplitude covarying with eccentricity, analyses of other benthic δ18O records yielding similar orbital amplitude ratios, and use of an orbitally-independent timescale also showing significant precession. Precession in phase with Northern Hemisphere summer intensity steadily intensifies throughout the Pleistocene, in agreement with its more common identification during the late Pleistocene. A Northern Hemisphere ice sheet and energy balance model run over the early Pleistocene predicts orbital amplitudes consistent with observations when a cooling commensurate with North Atlantic sea surface temperatures is imposed. These results provide strong evidence that glaciation is influenced by climatic precession during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene, and are consistent with hypotheses that glaciation is controlled by Northern Hemisphere summer insolation.NERC NE/R000204/1
EPSRC EP/S030417/
Orbital forcing of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene
Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change
Paleoclimate data help us assess climate sensitivity and potential human-made
climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of
the past million years was less than 1{\deg}C warmer than in the Holocene.
Polar warmth in these interglacials and in the Pliocene does not imply that a
substantial cushion remains between today's climate and dangerous warming, but
rather that Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in
response to moderate global warming. Thus goals to limit human-made warming to
2{\deg}C are not sufficient - they are prescriptions for disaster. Ice sheet
disintegration is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. We suggest that
ice sheet mass loss, if warming continues unabated, will be characterized
better by a doubling time for mass loss rate than by a linear trend. Satellite
gravity data, though too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling
time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level
rise this century. Observed accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our
conclusion that Earth's temperature now exceeds the mean Holocene value. Rapid
reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in
preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures; final version accepted for publication in
"Climate Change at the Eve of the Second Decade of the Century: Inferences
from Paleoclimate and Regional Aspects: Proceedings of Milutin Milankovitch
130th Anniversary Symposium" (eds. Berger, Mesinger and Sijaci