Much of our understanding of Earth’s past climate comes from the measurement of oxygen and carbon isotope variations in deep-sea benthic foraminifera. Yet, long intervals in existing records lack the temporal resolution and age control needed to thoroughly categorize climate states of the Cenozoic era and to study their dynamics. Here, we present a new, highly resolved, astronomically dated, continuous composite of benthic foraminifer isotope records developed in our laboratories. Four climate states—Hothouse, Warmhouse, Coolhouse, Icehouse—are identified on the basis of their distinctive response to astronomical forcing depending on greenhouse gas concentrations and polar ice sheet volume. Statistical analysis of the nonlinear behavior encoded in our record reveals the key role that polar ice volume plays in the predictability of Cenozoic climate dynamics.

Abstract. The early Eocene (56 to 48 million years ago) is inferred to have been the most recent time that Earth's atmospheric CO2 concentrations exceeded 1000 ppm. Global mean temperatures were also substantially warmer than those of the present day. As such, the study of early Eocene climate provides insight into how a super-warm Earth system behaves and offers an opportunity to evaluate climate models under conditions of high greenhouse gas forcing. The Deep Time Model Intercomparison Project (DeepMIP) is a systematic model–model and model–data intercomparison of three early Paleogene time slices: latest Paleocene, Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) and early Eocene climatic optimum (EECO). A previous article outlined the model experimental design for climate model simulations. In this article, we outline the methodologies to be used for the compilation and analysis of climate proxy data, primarily proxies for temperature and CO2. This paper establishes the protocols for a concerted and coordinated effort to compile the climate proxy records across a wide geographic range. The resulting climate “atlas” will be used to constrain and evaluate climate models for the three selected time intervals and provide insights into the mechanisms that control these warm climate states. We provide version 0.1 of this database, in anticipation that this will be expanded in subsequent publications.

Abstract. Recent studies have shown that the Early EoceneClimatic Optimum (EECO) was preceded by a series of short-lived global warming events, known as hyperthermals. Here we present high-resolution benthic stable carbon and oxygen isotope records from ODP Sites 1262 and 1263 (Walvis Ridge, SE Atlantic) between ∼ 54 and ∼ 52 million years ago, tightly constraining the character, timing, and magnitude of six prominent hyperthermal events. These events, which include Eocene Thermal Maximum (ETM) 2 and 3, are studied in relation to orbital forcing and long-term trends. Our findings reveal an almost linear relationship between δ 13 C and δ 18 O for all these hyperthermals, indicating that the eccentricity-paced covariance between deep-sea temperature changes and extreme perturbations in the exogenic carbon pool persisted during these events towards the onset of the EECO, in accordance with previous observations for the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and ETM2. The covariance of δ 13 C and δ 18 O during H2 and I2, which are the second pulses of the "paired" hyperthermal events ETM2-H2 and I1-I2, deviates with respect to the other events. We hypothesize that this could relate to a relatively higher contribution of an isotopically heavier source of carbon, such as peat or permafrost, and/or to climate feedbacks/local changes in circulation. Finally, the δ 18 O records of the two sites show a systematic offset with on average 0.2 ‰ heavier values for the shallower Site 1263, which we link to a slightly heavier isotopic composition of the intermediate water mass reaching the northeastern flank of the Walvis Ridge compared to that of the deeper northwestern water mass at Site 1262.

The early Eocene represents a time of major changes in the global carbon cycle and fluctuations in global temperatures on both short-and long-time scales. These perturbations of the ocean-atmosphere system have been linked to orbital forcing and changes in net organic carbon burial, but accurate age models are required to disentangle the various forcing mechanisms and assess causal relationships. Discrepancies between the employed astrochronological and radioisotopic dating techniques prevent the construction of a robust time frame between ~49 and ~54 Ma. Here we present an astronomically tuned age model for this critical time period based on a new high-resolution benthic δ 13 C record of ODP Site 1263, SE Atlantic. First, we assess three possible tuning options to the stable long-eccentricity cycle (405-kyr), starting from Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2, ~54 Ma). Next we compare our record to the existing bulk carbonate δ 13 C record from the equatorial Atlantic (Demerara Rise, ODP Site 1258) to evaluate our three initial age models and compare them with alternative age models previously established for this site. Finally, we refine our preferred age model by expanding our tuning to the 100-kyr eccentricity cycle of the La2010d solution. This solution appears to accurately reflect the long-and short-term eccentricity-related patterns in our benthic δ 13 C record of ODP Site 1263 back to at least 52 Ma and possibly to 54 Ma. Our time scale not only aims to provide a new detailed age model for this period, but it may also serve to enhance our understanding of the response of the climate system to orbital forcing during this super greenhouse period as well as trends in its background state.

Abstract. The early Eocene (56 to 48 million years ago) is inferred to have been the most recent time that Earth's atmospheric CO2 concentrations exceeded 1000 ppm. Global mean temperatures were also substantially warmer than present day. As such, study of early Eocene climate provides insight into how a super-warm Earth system behaves and offers an opportunity to evaluate climate models under conditions of high greenhouse gas forcing. The Deep Time Model Intercomparison Project (DeepMIP) is a systematic model-model and model-data intercomparison of three early Paleogne time slices: latest Paleocene, Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum and early Eocene climatic optimum. A previous article outlined the model experimental design for climate model simulations. In this article, we outline the methodologies to be used for the compilation and analysis of climate proxy data, primarily proxies for temperature and CO2. This paper establishes the protocols for a concerted and coordinated effort to compile the climate proxy records across a wide geographic range. The resulting climate atlas will be used to constrain and evaluate climate models for the three selected time intervals, and provide insights into the mechanisms that control these warm climate states. We provide version 0.1 of this database, in anticipation that this will be expanded in subsequent publications.

Abstract. Transient greenhouse warming events in the Paleocene and Eocene were associated with the addition of isotopically light carbon to the exogenic atmosphere–ocean carbon system, leading to substantial environmental and biotic change. The magnitude of an accompanying carbon isotope excursion (CIE) can be used to constrain both the sources and amounts of carbon released during an event and also to correlate marine and terrestrial records with high precision. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is well documented, but CIE records for the subsequent warming events are still rare, especially from the terrestrial realm.Here, we provide new paleosol carbonate CIE records for two of the smaller hyperthermal events, I1 and I2, as well as two additional records of Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2) and H2 in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA. Stratigraphic comparison of this expanded, high-resolution terrestrial carbon isotope history to the deep-sea benthic foraminiferal isotope records from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) sites 1262 and 1263, Walvis Ridge, in the southern Atlantic Ocean corroborates the idea that the Bighorn Basin fluvial sediments record global atmospheric change. The  ∼  34 m thicknesses of the eccentricity-driven hyperthermals in these archives corroborate precession forcing of the  ∼  7 m thick fluvial overbank–avulsion sedimentary cycles. Using bulk-oxide mean-annual-precipitation reconstructions, we find soil moisture contents during the four younger hyperthermals that are similar to or only slightly wetter than the background, in contrast with soil drying observed during the PETM using the same proxy, sediments, and plant fossils.The magnitude of the CIEs in soil carbonate for the four smaller, post-PETM events scale nearly linearly with the equivalent event magnitudes documented in marine records. In contrast, the magnitude of the PETM terrestrial CIE is at least 5 ‰ smaller than expected based on extrapolation of the scaling relationship established from the smaller events. We evaluate the potential for recently documented, nonlinear effects of pCO2 on plant photosynthetic C-isotope fractionation to explain this scaling discrepancy. We find that the PETM anomaly can be explained only if background pCO2 was at least 50 % lower during most of the post-PETM events than prior to the PETM. Although not inconsistent with other pCO2 proxy data for the time interval, this would require declining pCO2 across an interval of global warming. A more likely explanation of the PETM CIE anomaly in pedogenic carbonate is that other environmental or biogeochemical factors influencing the terrestrial CIE magnitudes were not similar in nature or proportional to event size across all of the hyperthermals. We suggest that contrasting regional hydroclimatic change between the PETM and subsequent events, in line with our soil proxy records, may have modulated the expression of the global CIEs in the Bighorn Basin soil carbonate records.

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