Reproducing the Mid-Piacenzian Warm Period Climate in the 2020s.

Author(s): Richard M. Blaber*

The current expectation of climatologists is that levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases, such as methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), will correspond, in the 2020s, to an increase in mean annual global near surface atmospheric temperature of less than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial Holocene norm (1750 baseline; atmospheric CO₂ = 278 ppm). This paper will argue, contrarily, that it is not possible to reproduce the atmospheric chemistry of the Mid-Piacenzian Warm Period (3.3-3 Mya) of the Pliocene Epoch, 5.3-2.588 Mya, without also reproducing its climate, and that consequently we can expect to see global warming of 3°C this decade.

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