After the Marinoan snowball Earth, the climate warmed rapidly due to enhanced greenhouse conditions, and the freshwater inflow of melting glaciers caused a strong stratification of the ocean. Our climate simulations reveal a potentially only moderate global temperature increase and a break-up of the stratification within just a few thousand years. The findings give insights into the environmental conditions relevant for the geological and biological evolution during that time.

Deep ocean temperatures are widely used as a proxy for global mean surface temperature in the past, but the underlying assumptions have not been tested. We use two unique sets of 109 climate model simulations for the last 545 million years to show that the relationship is valid for approximately the last 100 million years but breaks down for older time periods when the continents (and hence ocean circulation) are in very different positions.

The large-scale features of middle Pliocene climate from the 16 models of PlioMIP Phase 2 are presented. The PlioMIP2 ensemble average was ~ 3.2 °C warmer and experienced ~ 7 % more precipitation than the pre-industrial era, although there are large regional variations. PlioMIP2 broadly agrees with a new proxy dataset of Pliocene sea surface temperatures. Combining PlioMIP2 and proxy data suggests that a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ would increase globally averaged temperature by 2.6–4.8 °C.

Understanding of the role of ocean circulation on climate is contingent on the ability to reconstruct its modes and evolution. Here, we show that earth system model simulations of the Late Cretaceous predict major changes in ocean circulation as a result of paleogeographic and gateway evolution. Comparisons of model results with available data compilations demonstrate reasonable agreement but highlight that various plausible theories of ocean circulation change coexist during this period.

To quantify the impact of major climate forcings on the Cretaceous climate, we use Earth system modelling to progressively reconstruct the Cretaceous state by changing boundary conditions one by one. Between the preindustrial and the Cretaceous simulations, the model simulates a global warming of more than 11°C. The study confirms the primary control exerted by atmospheric CO₂ on atmospheric temperatures. Palaeogeographic changes represent the second major contributor to the warming.