Published December 20, 2024 | Version 1.02
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Data Product for "Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2"

  • 1. ROR icon Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Contributors

Data curator:

Description

These data were vetted and revised from published paleo-CO2 data (original estimates archived at https://zenodo.org/uploads/8052599) by an international group of proxy experts supported through an NSF-funded Research Coordination Network. It brings together paleo-CO2 reconstruction data from terrestrial and marine archives, and the compilation includes estimates derived from multiple proxies including Phytoplankton, Boron, Stomatal Frequencies, Leaf Gas Exchange, Liverworts, Land Plant d13C, Paleosols, and Nahcolite. Data are visualized in an interactive product plot made available on the Paleo-CO2 project web page at (https://www.paleo-co2.org) and are also archived in the NCDC database (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_forcing/trace_gases/Paleo-pCO2/product_files/). 

Abstract

The geological record encodes the relationship between climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) over long and short timescales, as well as potential drivers of evolutionary transitions. However, reconstructing CO2 beyond direct measurements requires the use of paleo-proxies and herein lies the challenge, as proxies differ in their assumptions, degree of understanding, and even reconstructed values. Here we critically evaluate, categorize, and integrate available proxies to create a high-fidelity and transparently constructed atmospheric CO2 record spanning the past 66 million years. This provides clearer evidence for higher Earth System Sensitivity in the past and for the role of CO2 thresholds in biological and cryosphere evolution.

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product December 2024.zip

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Additional details

Related works

Is published in
Journal: 10.1126/science.adi5177 (DOI)

Funding

U.S. National Science Foundation
RCN: Improving reconstructions of Cenozoic pCO2 and temperature change 16-36079
Heising-Simons Foundation
paleopCO2 – A Scientifically Rigorous and Accessible CO2 ‘Keeling Curve’ for Geologic Time 2018-0996

References

  • The CenCO2PIP Consortium, Science 382, eadi5177 (2023)