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High Earth-system climate sensitivity determined from Pliocene carbon dioxide concentrations

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 27–30 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Climate sensitivity—the mean global temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations through radiative forcing and associated feedbacks—is estimated at 1.5–4.5 ∘C (ref. 1). However, this value incorporates only relatively rapid feedbacks such as changes in atmospheric water vapour concentrations, and the distributions of sea ice, clouds and aerosols2. Earth-system climate sensitivity, by contrast, additionally includes the effects of long-term feedbacks such as changes in continental ice-sheet extent, terrestrial ecosystems and the production of greenhouse gases other than CO2. Here we reconstruct atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations for the early and middle Pliocene, when temperatures were about 3–4 ∘C warmer than preindustrial values3,4,5, to estimate Earth-system climate sensitivity from a fully equilibrated state of the planet. We demonstrate that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming about 4.5 million years ago, and that CO2 levels at peak temperatures were between about 365 and 415 ppm. We conclude that the Earth-system climate sensitivity has been significantly higher over the past five million years than estimated from fast feedbacks alone.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Alkenone-based atmospheric CO2 concentrations and CO2slope.
Figure 3: Estimated CO2 trends considering probable oceanographic changes at each site.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by National Science Foundation grant OCE-0727306 and supported by the Yale Climate and Energy Institute. Conversations with K. Caldeira and R. DeConto were helpful and greatly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA

    Mark Pagani & Zhonghui Liu

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Zhonghui Liu

  3. Ocean Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA

    Jonathan LaRiviere & Ana Christina Ravelo

Authors
  1. Mark Pagani
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  2. Zhonghui Liu
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  3. Jonathan LaRiviere
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  4. Ana Christina Ravelo
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Contributions

All four authors were involved in drafting the paper, led by M.P. Z.L. carried out compound-specific carbon isotope analyses and alkenone temperature reconstructions, J.L. and A.C.R. analysed planktonic foraminifera δ13C.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark Pagani.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Pagani, M., Liu, Z., LaRiviere, J. et al. High Earth-system climate sensitivity determined from Pliocene carbon dioxide concentrations. Nature Geosci 3, 27–30 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo724

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