Global Sea Surface Temperature and Ecosystem Change Across the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum

Abstract:

The Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) (ca. 17 to 14 Ma) is generally considered as the warmest episode of the Neogene based on deep marine oxygen isotope records and terrestrial plant fossils. To date, however, reasonable resolution high-quality sea surface temperature (SST) proxy records spanning its onset are scarce at best. For the remainder of the MMCO, reliable SST records are absent from the tropics and very scarce in temperate and polar regions. This leaves the question if the MMCO was truly associated with global warming and if this warming was associated with biotic change.

We use organic biomarker paleothermometry (U^k'₃₇ and TEX₈₆) to reconstruct SST across the MMCO at four locations along a pole-to-pole transect in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. Additionally, we use marine palynology (mostly dinoflagellate cysts) to assess ecosystem change at these locations. This study includes the first tropical biomarker-based SST records of the MMCO. Together with new and existing SST records from higher latitudes and the corresponding palynological records, they provide new insights in the temporal and spatial development of the MMCO. Our results indicate that Mid-Miocene warming was most prominent in the Norwegian Sea, showed a more complex, perhaps upwelling-related pattern in a tropical location, and was small in the Southern Hemisphere.