Stable isotope data from Southern Ocean deep-sea cores identifies a middle Eocene warming event around 41.5 million years ago. The dataset, sourced from NASA EarthData and contributed by SCIOPS, documents a transient warming of 4°C over 600,000 years. It provides evidence for a climatic reversal during a long-term cooling trend.
Use Cases
- Analyze d18O isotope shifts to reconstruct paleo-temperature changes in surface and deep waters.
- Correlate the timing of the isotopic event (ca. 41.5 Ma) with other geological records to understand climatic drivers.
- Investigate the absence of a significant negative carbon isotope excursion to differentiate this event from methane hydrate dissociation triggers.
- Model the transient 4°C warming over 600 k.y. to test hypotheses about pCO2 rise mechanisms.
Strengths
- Data captures a distinct climatic event with a documented d18O shift of approximately 1.0‰.
- Analysis provides a quantified estimate of 4°C warming over a 600,000-year period.
- Focus on specific Southern Ocean sites (Maud Rise, Kerguelen Plateau) offers regional detail.
Limitations
- Specific row count, column details, and file formats are unknown.
- Geographic coverage is limited to two sites in the Indian-Atlantic region of the Southern Ocean.
- The dataset's recency and update frequency are unspecified.
Provenance
- Source
- nasa_earthdata
- Collection Method
- Data derived from analysis of deep-sea sediment cores.
- Time Range
- Middle Eocene period, centered around 41.5 million years ago.
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Southern Ocean sites on Maud Rise and the Kerguelen Plateau.