“…teX 86 -derived temperatures are compared with local insolation (blue and purple), antarctic ice core (green), and sub-antarctic sea surface temperatures (SSts; red and blue) from the pacific Sector of the Southern ocean, revealing similarities on orbital and millennial timescales (see Shevenell et al, 2011, for details (Savin et al, 1975;Kennett, 1977;Flower and Kennett, 1994;Shevenell et al, 2004 (Figure 2; Flower, 1999;Zachos et al, 2001;Pagani et al, 2005;Kurschner et al, 2008). Because a definitive link between ice growth and atmospheric CO 2 concentrations has yet to be established for the middle Miocene (Flower, 1999;Pagani et al, 1999) Shevenell et al, 2004Shevenell et al, , 2008Verducci et al, 2009;Majewski and Bohaty, 2010), the Ross Sea region (Naish et al, 2007;Warny et al, 2009;Harwood et al, 2008Feakins et al, 2012), the Antarctic Peninsula (J.B. Anderson et al, 2011), and the McMurdo Dry Valleys (Lewis et al, 2008) (Shevenell et al, 2004) and benthic (Shevenell et al, 2008) foraminifer CaCO 3 suggest the presence of warm waters around Antarctica was only slightly higher than present ( Figure 5; Shevenell et al, 2008;Lear et al, 2010). Although ice growth began at 15.5 Ma, about two million years prior to the node in Earth's orbital parameters identified at ~ 13.84 Ma (Holbourn et al, 2005), Southern Ocean surface cooling did not commence until 14.2 Ma, when SSTs cooled 6-7°C in a stepwise fashion, reaching a minimum at 13.8 Ma (Shevenell et al, 2004).…”