Evaluating the dominant components of warming in Pliocene climate simulations

The simulations of the mid-Pliocene warm period show global warming of between 1.8 and 3.6 °C above pre-industrial surface air temperatures, with significant polar amplification. Here we perform energy balance calculations on all eight of the coupled ocean–atmosphere simulations within PlioMIP Experiment 2 to evaluate the causes of the increased temperatures and differences between the models.

In the tropics simulated warming is dominated by greenhouse gas increases, with the cloud component of planetary albedo enhancing the warming in most of the models, but by widely varying amounts. The responses to mid-Pliocene climate forcing in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes are substantially different between the climate models, with the only consistent response being a warming due to increased greenhouse gases.