Stability of the Arctic Ocean ice-cover and Pleistocene warming events: outlining the problem

Abstract

Interpretations of the Arctic Ocean condition during the late Cenozoic include the idea of a continual warm ocean until ~2Ma, a continually cold ocean with no permanent ice until 0.85Ma, a probable warming of a cold Arctic Ocean around its margins at ~2Ma, and a deep ocean warming event that resulted from increased ventilation of the Arctic Ocean at ~1.5Ma. All of these ideas contrast, at least in part, with an unique idea that 1000m thick ice occupied most of the Arctic Basin during the Pleistocene. There are questions concerning the chronology for most of these interpretations, and with the limited evidence available it is possible that the proposed deep ocean ventilation at ~1.5Ma and the warming of the Arctic borderlands interpreted to have occurred at ~2Ma could represent a single event. -from Author