Simulation of the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum

Simulation of the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum

[1] Proxy data constraining land and ocean surface paleotemperatures indicate that the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO), a global warming event at 15 Ma, had a global annual mean surface temperature of 18.4 C, about 3 C higher than present and equivalent to the warming predicted for the next century. We apply the latest National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere M...

Simulation of the Middle Miocene climate optimum: implications for future climate

Simulating warmth of the mid-Miocene Climate Optimum in CESM1

Introduction Conclusions References

Using paleosols of the Picture Gorge Basalt to reconstruct the middle Miocene climatic optimum

The Picture Gorge Subgroup of the Columbia River Basalt preserves numerous, minimally altered, interfl ow paleosols that were formed during the middle Miocene climatic optimum. These paleosols are used to reconstruct a high-resolution paleoclimate record. Between 16.0–15.4 Ma ago, mean annual precipitation (MAP) was 500–900 mm/year and mean annual temperature (MAT) was 8–16°C, which is consiste...

Middle Miocene hominoid origins.

Ward et al. (1) ably show that samples of thickly enameled Middle Miocene hominoids that they attribute to a new genus, Equatorius, are distinct from Kenyapithecus. They fail to show, however, how Equatorius differs from Griphopithecus. In so doing, they may have missed the hominoid connection between Eurasia and Africa by 2 to 3 million years. The authors note the presence of a welldeveloped b...