Continental Climate Gradients in North America and Western Eurasia before and after the Closure of the Central American Seaway

The Gulf Stream, as part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), is known as a major driver of latitudinal energy transport in the North Atlantic presently causing mild winters over northwestern Eurasia. The intensity of the AMOC throughout the Neogene, prior to the final closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS) in the early Pliocene, is still poorly known, but most authors assume that the circulation was considerably weaker than present. Here we address this issue from a continental point of view. We studied the past AMOC intensity by analyzing Neogene continental climate patterns along North American and Western Eurasian transects. Based on a total of 317 palaeofloras thermal latitudinal gradients are reconstructed for three Neogene time slices, namely the middle Miocene, late Miocene, and late Pliocene using the Coexistence Approach to obtain quantitative climate data. The obtained proxy-based, continental temperature gradients are evaluated against data from a selection of published General Circulation Model (GCM) simulations for the three time slices studied.