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Harry J. Dowsett
Pliocene Pliocene PaleoclimatePaleoclimate
ResearchResearch
U.S. Geological Survey | Reston, VAEastern Geology & Paleoclimate Science Center
Northumbria/GMU
US Geological Survey PRISM ProjectUS Geological Survey PRISM Project
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PRISM/PlioMIP CollaborationPliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping Project
Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project
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PRISM History
UpwellingReconstruction
TimeSliceData
Sea Level
PlioMIP2Exp
BiologicalImpacts
Pliocene Research, Interpretation & Synoptic Mapping
Topography
Northumbria/GMU
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s
USGS (2009)USGS (2009)
3.025 Ma3.025 Ma3.264 Ma3.264 Ma
Bennett Lecture
Deep Time?
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General theme of Soviet–Era authors. . .
‘…the Arctic ice is a great disadvantage, as are the permanently frozen soil (permafrost), dust storms, dry winds, water shortages in the deserts, etc. … if we want to improve our planet and make it more suitable for life, we must alter its climate.’
–(Rusin & Flit, 1960)Geoengineering?
Dam the Bering Straights, pump Arctic water to Pacific
Divert major rivers away from Arctic to central Asia
Accelerate the Greenhouse Effect
The US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) had a classified program ‘Nile Blue’ investigating National Security implications of deliberate or inadvertant climate modification by the Soviets.
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• 1970s – Budyko suggested reconstructions of Late Cenozoic (Eemian, Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene) climatic optima as “palaeoanalogues” for 21st century climate
CO2 in the past meant warmer conditions…
• Early 1980s – State of “climate predictions” was less than encouraging to U.S. policy makers
• 1982 – NAS suggested new “deep time” synoptic reconstructions were necessary
• 1988 – USGS began its “Warm Pliocene Project” to produce a better synoptic view of the Pliocene; NASA agreed to model Pliocene climate usingUSGS boundary conditions
Events leading to the National Climate Program in 1987 Set fire to
the coal mines!
Set fire to the coal mines!
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PRISM Goals1.Reconstruct the Pliocene paleoenvironment to better
understand the most recent interval of Global Warmth similar to that projected for the end of the 21st
Century.
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2.Provide digital data sets of boundary conditions that can be used to initialize and verify [Pliocene] paleoclimate simulations.
PRISM Goals
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Mean Annual Global Temperature, relative to 1800–1900 (°C)
IPCC–scenario
based ? MAT estimations
Today
Why the Pliocene? A future beyond our experience…
Northumbria/GMU
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Pre-Industrial
385 – 400
800,000 year composite record of CO2variability from Antarctic ice cores
Preindustrial
Northumbria/GMU
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Benthic oxygen isotopes
Glacial(cool, more ice volume)
Interglacial(warm, less ice volume)
Pleistocene
You are here
You are here
Piacenzian Zanclean
No NH ice
C. wuellerstorfi
Pliocene
Northumbria/GMU
d18O↑
16O↑
glacial16Od18O
↑
inter-glacial
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• The PETM was certainly warmer with more CO2 …
• The LIG is certainly more accessible…
• The Pliocene is a compromise: warming on the order of 2-3°C, boundary conditions mostly identical to present day, within reach of many of the proxy methods used for more recent climate reconstructions, biota extant…
PETM
LIG
Mio
K
Why the Pliocene?
Northumbria/GMU
Intervalsof Warmth
Pliocene Yorktown Formation, SE Virginia
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Climate System boundary conditions
Northumbria/GMU
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PRISM3 Data – Model “Scheme”
Northumbria/GMU (Stratigraphy– Dowsett et al., 2010)