Phanerozoic icehouse climates as the result of multiple solid-Earth cooling mechanisms
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Date
2025
Authors
Merdith, A.S.
Gernon, T.M.
Maffre, P.
Donnadieu, Y.
Goddéris, Y.
Longman, J.
Müller, R.D.
Mills, B.J.W.
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Journal article
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Science Advances, 2025; 11(7):eadm9798-1-eadm9798-15
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Andrew S. Merdith, Thomas M. Gernon, Pierre Maffre, Yannick Donnadieu, Yves Goddéris, Jack Longman, R. Dietmar Müller, Benjamin J. W. Mills
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Abstract
The Phanerozoic climate has been interrupted by two long "icehouse" intervals, including the current icehouse of the last ~34 million years. While these cool intervals correspond to lower atmospheric CO2, it is unclear why CO2 levels fell, with hypotheses suggesting changes in CO2 degassing rates or modification of silicate weathering through changing continental lithology or paleogeography. Here, we construct an Earth System Model that integrates these proposed cooling mechanisms in detail. The model can reproduce the broad geologic record of ice cap expansion, allowing us to infer the primary drivers of long-term climate change. Our results indicate that recent icehouse climates required a combination of different cooling mechanisms acting simultaneously and were not driven by a single known process, potentially explaining why icehouses have been rarer than greenhouses over Earth history.
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© 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).