A celestial drive that cooled in the late Miocene? – Watt?

David Middleton's guest “Surfing Radcliffe Wave”

About 34 million years ago (MYA), in the early Oligocene, the Earth entered its current “igloo” climate pattern, covering the ice caps of Antarctica. After warming up again at the end of the Oligocene, the Earth's climate began a long cooling trend, interrupted by a brief warmth from the late to mid-Middle Miocene period.

The Miocene Miocene optimal climate (MMCO) is an abnormally warm interval of ~17 to ~14 mya. CO's erroneous assumptions₂ Is the climate change “control knob” leading to many attempts to link MMCO to CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) outbreak. The CBRG eruption did happen simultaneously with MMCO…

Flood basalts are the largest volcanic event in Earth's history and are believed to drive global environmental changes as they can emit large quantities of CO₂ so₂ On short geological time scales. The eruption of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) is related to atmospheric elevation₂ Global warming before the Miocene Miocene Optimal Climate (MMCO) ~16 million years (MA). However, because the timing and speed of the CRBG eruption are unclear, the causal relationship between volcano and warming remains speculative. We used U-PB geology on volcanic ash beds inserted into the basalt formation to establish high-resolution CRBG eruption records. Our dataset shows that over 95% of CRBG bursts ranged between 16.7 and 15.9 MA, twice the rate of previous estimates. By suggesting recalibration of the geomagnetic polarity time scale, these data indicate that the onset of flood volcanoes occurs almost simultaneously with MMCO.

Kashbohm & Schoene (2018)

These flood basalt outbreaks will surely emit a lot of CO₂other volcanic gas and sulfate aerosols. But CO₂ Elimination may be just a small part of what is needed to explain MMCO.

Armstrong McKay et al., estimated in 2014 that the main stages of the CRBG outbreak and the “hidden degassing” of rural rocks, emitted 409 to 5.67 billion tons of carbon over 900,000 periods. Only 5-6 million tons of carbon can be calculated every year… This is less than rounding errors. Our current annual 10 billion tons is only 3% of the total annual resources in the Earth's budget. Self et al., discovered CO in 2005₂ Emissions from flood basin eruptions are insignificant relative to the mass of CO₂ In the atmosphere, it is unlikely to play an important role in the past “global warming”. Although they do point out that sulfur emissions and sulfate aerosols may indeed be unprecedented. However, these will have a cooling effect on the climate.

Furthermore, there is little evidence of significantly elevated atmospheric CO₂ Related to CRBG.

Neither MMCO nor subsequent cooling resulted in the growth of the East Antarctic Ice Cap (EAIS), which appears to be driven by changes in atmospheric CO.₂.

There is no evidence to suggest these two pcompany₂ The best or sharp climate in the late Miocene pcompany₂ Reduction is associated with EAIS growth.

Pagans et al., 1999

Although the cause of MMCO remains a mysterious (probably a tectonic drive change in the ocean cycle), the cause of subsequent cooling (also known as the mid-Mid-Cross Climate Transition or MMCT) may now be determined.

Astronomers say our solar system crossed the “Radcliffe Wave” during the Miocene.

Natali Anderson on February 25, 2025

As our solar system rotates in the Milky Way, it encounters a variety of environments, including dense areas of interstellar medium. These encounters can expose a portion of the solar system to interstellar medium, while also flowing interstellar dust into the solar system and the Earth's atmosphere. The discovery of new galactic structures, such as the 9,000-pound Radcliffe Wave, raises the question whether the Sun encounters any of them. According to new research, the solar system's trajectory intersects the Radcliffe waves in the region formed by the Orion star between 15 and 12 million years ago (MECA). It is worth noting that this period coincides with the mid-Mid-Crocene climate transition, which provides an interdisciplinary link to paleoclimatology.

[…]

The Radcliffe wave is a narrow sinusoidal gas structure that includes many known star-shaped cloud complexes such as CMA, Orion, Taurus, Taurus, Perseus, Cepheus, Cepheus, North America Nebula and Cygnus.

The gas structure is estimated to have 3 million solar masses, which seem to oscillate like fluctuations, and is considered part of the spiral structure of the Milky Way.

“Imagine it's like a ship sailing under various conditions at sea,” said Dr. Efrem Maconi, a doctoral student at the University of Vienna.

“As our sun passes through the Radcliffe wave in the Orion sign, the sunlight encounters a higher gas density.”

[…]

Science News

The paper, Maconi et al., 2025, was recently published in the journal Open Access Astronomy and astrophysics. The authors are very careful not to draw a lot of conclusions, but the correlation between Radcliffe Wave Transit and MMCT in our solar system is very interesting.

This is the temperature and CO of Miocene₂ Reconstructed to draw together:

Radcliffe Wave Transit is certainly more likely to affect MMCT than atmospheric decline₂. The concept of celestial climate drivers is nothing new. This concept is similar to that proposed by Nir Shaviv and Jan Veizer in 2003 Today's GSA Paper.

Atmospheric level₂ It is often considered the main driver of global climate. Independently, empirical evidence suggests that galactic cosmic ray flux (CRF) is associated with climate variability. Currently, these two drivers are discussed in the context of daily to millennial changes. They should also operate on geological time scales within the scope of their actual existence. Here, we analyze low-latitude sea surface temperatures reconstructed on phanerozoic (545 MYR last) and compare it with variable CRF and with the reconstruction partial pressure of atmospheric CO.₂ (PCO₂). We found that at least 66% of the differences in the reconstruction temperature trend can be attributed to CRF changes caused by the spiral arms of the Milky Way through the solar system, an observation that allows us to estimate the CRF/temperature relationship. Assume that the entire residual difference in temperature is attributed to CO only₂ Greenhouse effect, or one of the reconstructed Phanerokoic PCOs₂ Trends have been proven and we can limit the upper limit on the long-term “balanced” warming effect of CO₂a possible lower than the one based on the general cycle model (GCM).

Shaviv & Veizer, 2003

After the merger of the “Celestial Driver” model, Shaviv & Veizer estimates that the maximum equilibrium climate sensitivity (EC) for atmospheric CO is 1.9ºC per doubling of atmospheric CO is 1.9ºC₂the most likely value is 0.5ºC, doubled every time. The unknown weather climate driver may be the EC estimates derived from paleo-climatic data are almost the EC derived from simultaneous instrument data.

Radcliffe Wave wasn't discovered until recently (2019), even though it's relatively close to the current position of the solar system (about 400 light-years). This is an “unknown” potential driver of climate change, prior to the publication of Maconi et al., 2025.

How many other “unknown unknowns” are there?

refer to

Armstrong McKay, David, Toby Tyrrell, Paul A. Wilson and Gavin Foster. (2014). “Estimated Effects of Recessive Degassing in Igorized Provinces: A Mid-Mid-Cross Case Study”. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 403. 254–262. 10.1016/j.epsl.2014.06.040. Special thanks to David Armstrong McKay for sending me a copy of his paper.

Kasbohm, Jennifer and Blair Schoene. “The rapid outbreak of basalts in the Columbia River flood and its correlation with optimal climate in the mid-Mid-Century.” Science AdvancesAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, September 1, 2018, Advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/9/eaat8223.

St. Latzen Burke. OPHER. “In the middle of the Miocene, the solar system passes through the Radcliffe wave”. A&A694 (2025) A167 two: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202452061

Pagani, Mark, Michael Arthur and Katherine Freeman. (1999). “Mid-epocene evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Ancient Chinese. 14.273-292. 10.1029/1999PA900006.

Royer, DL, etc. 2006. “Level 3 paleoplant atmosphere₂ reconstruction. IGBP Page/World Data Center” Data Contribution Series #2006-021. NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, USA.

Self, Stephen & Thordarson, Thorvaldur & Widdowson, Mike. (2005). “Gas flux from flood basalt eruptions”. element. 1.10.2113/gselements.1.5.283.

Shaviv, NJ and Veizer, J. (2003) “The celestial driving force of the phantom climate?”. Today's GSA4-10.
https://doi.org/10.1130/1052-5173(2003)013< 0004：cdopc> 2.0.co;2

Tripati, AK, CD Roberts and Ra Eagle. 2009. “CO coupling₂ and ice sheet stability for major climate transitions over the past 20 million years”. science,roll. 326, pp. 13941397, December 4, 2009. doi:10.1126/science.11​​78296

Zachos, JC, Pagani, M., Sloan, LC, Thomas, E. & Billups, K. “Trends, rhythms and distortions of global climate 65 MA”. science 292, 686–-693 (2001).

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