Long- and short-term coupling of sea surface temperature and atmospheric CO 2 during the late Paleocene and early Eocene

The late Paleocene and early Eocene (LPEE) are characterized by long-term (million years, Myr) global warming and by transient, abrupt (kiloyears, kyr) warming events, termed hyperthermals. Although both have been attributed to greenhouse (CO 2 ) forcing, the longer-term trend in climate was likely influenced by additional forcing factors (i.e., tectonics) and the extent to which warming was driven by atmospheric CO 2 remains unclear. Here, we use a suite of new and existing observations from planktic foraminifera collected at Pacific Ocean Drilling Program Sites 1209 and 1210 and inversion of a multiproxy Bayesian hierarchical model to quantify sea surface temperature (SST) and atmospheric CO 2 over a 6-Myr interval. Our reconstructions span the initiation of long-term LPEE warming (~58 Ma), and the two largest Paleogene hyperthermals, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~56 Ma) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM-2, ~54 Ma). Our results show strong coupling between CO 2 and temperature over the long- (LPEE) and short-term (PETM and ETM-2) but differing Pacific climate sensitivities over the two timescales. Combined CO 2 and carbon isotope trends imply the carbon source driving CO 2 increase was likely methanogenic, organic, or mixed for the PETM and organic for ETM-2, whereas a source with higher δ 13 C values (e.g., volcanic degassing) is associated with the long-term LPEE. Reconstructed emissions for the PETM (5,800 Gt C) and ETM-2 (3,800 Gt C) are comparable in mass to future emission scenarios, reinforcing the value of these events as analogs of anthropogenic change.