Zhang Ran, Guo Jiaqi, Bradshaw Catherine D, Xu Xiyan, Shen Tiantian, Li Shufeng, Nie Junsheng, Zhang Chunxia, Li Xiangyu, Liu Ze, Zhang Jian, Jiang Dabang, Hu Yongyun, Sun Jimin
State Key Laboratory of Earth System Numerical Modeling and Application, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.
Sci Adv. 2025 May 2;11(18):eads4268. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ads4268.
The late Miocene was an important stage for the formation of modern-like ecological and environmental patterns. Proxy data from the middle to late Miocene reveal that large-scale cooling and drying occurred; however, the reasons for this climate transition remain unclear. Through a compilation of proxy data and climate simulations, our results indicate that atmospheric CO decline markedly decreased the temperature and reduced the precipitation in most of the land area, while the paleogeographic changes enhanced cooling at northern high latitudes and increased precipitation in East Asia, East Africa, and South America. In comparison, vegetation changes accelerated cooling at northern high latitudes (the maximum cooling exceeded 10°C) and modulated precipitation at low- and mid-latitude continents (the maximum decrease was close to 30%). This deepens the understanding of the mechanism of the late Miocene climate transition and highlights the importance of vegetation feedbacks during global climate change.
晚中新世是现代生态和环境格局形成的重要阶段。来自中新世中期到晚中新世的代用资料显示，发生了大规模的冷却和干燥；然而，这种气候转变的原因仍不清楚。通过对代用资料的汇编和气候模拟，我们的结果表明，大气中二氧化碳含量的显著下降降低了大部分陆地地区的温度并减少了降水量，而古地理变化增强了北半球高纬度地区的冷却作用，并增加了东亚、东非和南美洲的降水量。相比之下，植被变化加速了北半球高纬度地区的冷却（最大冷却超过10°C），并调节了低纬度和中纬度大陆的降水量（最大减少量接近30%）。这加深了对晚中新世气候转变机制的理解，并突出了全球气候变化期间植被反馈的重要性。
