A high-resolution climate simulation dataset for the past 540 million years

Abstract

The Phanerozoic Eon has witnessed considerable changes in the climate system as well as abundant animals and plant life. Therefore, the evolution of the climate system in this Eon is worthy of extensive research. Only by studying climate changes in the past can we understand the driving mechanisms for climate changes in the future and make reliable climate projections. Apart from observational paleoclimate proxy datasets, climate simulations provide an alternative approach to investigate past climate conditions of the Earth, especially for long time span in the deep past. Here we perform 55 snapshot simulations for the past 540 million years, with a 10-million-year interval, using the Community Earth System Model version 1.2.2 (CESM1.2.2). The climate simulation dataset includes global distributions of monthly surface temperatures and precipitation, with a 1° horizontal resolution of 0.9° × 1.25° in latitude and longitude. This open access climate dataset is useful for multidisciplinary research, such as paleoclimate, geology, geochemistry, and paleontology.

Climate Variations in the Past 250 Million Years and Contributing Factors

“…As is pointed out in Li et al. (2022) and in the Methods section, the overestimated CO 2 concentrations in the Control group of simulations are mainly related to two major factors. One is the ECS of the model.…”

“…Detailed description of the model used here, model setup, and simulation initialization has been documented in the preceding paper by Li et al. (2022). It is worth noting that the results presented in this study are from the fully coupled model (see below), while the results in Li et al.…”

Significant Contribution of Paleogeography to Stratospheric Water Vapor Variations in the Past 250 Million Years

“…In the first set, both solar insolation and CO 2 concentrations are prescribed as shown in Table 1 of Li et al. (2022). Solar insolation increases linearly with time from 1333.78 to 1360.89 W m −2 following Gough (1981).…”

“…Moreover, Xia, Huang, & Hu (2020) found that the increase in SWV is accelerated under greenhouse warming. It is important to note that the global mean surface temperature (GMST) variations over the past 250 Myr, which is as large as about 12 K, are much stronger than present‐day and future global warming based on climate models (Li et al., 2022; Scotese et al., 2021). These results raise important questions: how does SWV change associated with the large temperature variations over tectonic timescales?…”

“…What are the roles of continental configurations and solar insolation in changing the SWV over the past 250 Myr? In this paper, we are motivated to answer these questions based on climate model simulations (Li et al., 2022). In the following sections, we will describe the data and experiments and the results in order.…”