On greenhouse and icehouse climate regimes over the Phanerozoic

Abstract

Throughout the Phanerozoic and more, the Earth has experienced cold and hot periods, which are typically associated with long‐lasting (hundreds of million years, Ma) greenhouse and icehouse climate regimes. Now, most published sea‐level curves report two main maxima in the Cretaceous and Ordovician superimposed on a multitude of short‐term fluctuations. The big humps are shown to be predominantly the results of the plate tectonic configuration, not icehouse and greenhouse regimes, suggesting that the small oscillations are related to continental ice variations. From this point of view, it can be inferred that polar ice caps are present almost all the time, and climate regime changes appear much more frequent and shorter than usually considered and are not well‐documented from glaciogenic deposits. Relying on short‐term oscillations, the volume of continental ice can be retrieved over the Phanerozoic.

Full text

Terra Nova. 2024;00:1–6.
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1 | INTRODUCTIO N
It is commonly accepted that the Earth underwent long periods of
greenhouse and icehouse climate conditions (e.g., https:// en. wikip
edia. org/ wiki/ Paleo clima tology, Craig et al., 2009, and also Royer
et al., 2004 or Scotese et al., 2021 for instance) at least over the last
billion years (Figure 1). Timing and palæolatitudinal distribution of
glaciogenic detritus are often repor ted to support time intervals with
large polar ice cap extent (icehouse conditions) and intervals with
possibly little, seasonal or no ice cap at all (greenhouse conditions).
It is also well- accepted that the sea level has changed at a global
scale (eustatism) over geological times. The details of the changes
have been—and are still―debated and have led to the reconstruction
of numerous curves (Figure S1 and Table S1). One of the most largely
used reconstructions of the sea level for the Phanerozoic (Haq, 2018;
Haq et al., 1987; Haq & Schutter, 2008; rescaled to the International
Chronostratigaphic Chart, v.2021; Figure 2) shows two large humps
with maxima in the Late Cretaceous and Late Ordovician, with am-
plitudes ranging from −106.5 m to +239.9 m, and with a median value
of +81.6 m (Table S2).
Yet, due to plate tectonics, the volume of oceanic basins at a
global scale has changed over time as well. When the cumulative
length of mid- oceanic ridges is great or the age of the sea floor
is young or the spreading rate of sea- floor is high, the volume of
oceanic basins gets smaller (Figure 3). Using the present- day vol-
ume of oceanic water (constant volume), Vérard et al. (2015) have
shown that pouring that volume into the palæo- Digital Elevation
Models (DEMs) they reconstructed throughout the Phanerozoic
generates a sea- level curve, which mimics the main trend of the
eustatic changes. More recent works (Vérard, 2019, 2021 and
this study, Figure S1; Table S1; Marcilly et al., 2022) seem to con-
firm this result. Cloetingh and Haq (2015) recalled that water
storage in aquifers and lakes corresponds to too small order of
magnitude of potential sea- level change. They however proposed
Received: 18 August 2023
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Revised: 8 January 2024
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Accepted: 27 February 2024
DOI: 10.1111/ter.12711
RESEARCH ARTICLE
On greenhouse and icehouse climate regimes over the
Phanerozoic
Christian Vérard
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2024 The Authors. Terra Nova published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Department of Earth Sciences, University
of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Correspondence
Christian Vérard, Department of Earth
Sciences, University of Geneva, Rue
des Maraîchers 13, CH- 1205 Geneva,
Switzerland.
Email: christian.verard@unige.ch
Funding information
Swiss National Science Foundation, Grant/
Award Number: CRSII5 180253
Abstract
Throughout the Phanerozoic and more, the Earth has experienced cold and hot peri-
ods, which are typically associated with long- lasting (hundreds of million years, Ma)
greenhouse and icehouse climate regimes. Now, most published sea- level curves re-
port two main maxima in the Cretaceous and Ordovician superimposed on a multi-
tude of short- term fluctuations. The big humps are shown to be predominantly the
results of the plate tectonic configuration, not icehouse and greenhouse regimes, sug-
gesting that the small oscillations are related to continental ice variations. From this
point of view, it can be inferred that polar ice caps are present almost all the time, and
climate regime changes appear much more frequent and shorter than usually consid-
ered and are not well- documented from glaciogenic deposits. Relying on short- term
oscillations, the volume of continental ice can be retrieved over the Phanerozoic.
KEY WORDS
greenhouse, Icehouse, Panales is, Phanerozoic, plate tectonics, sea level

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a potential time lag corresponding to water exchange with man-
tle. Such time lag is not seen when comparing the synthetic sea-
level curve derived from the plate tectonic models with sea level
curve from the literature (in particular Haq, 2018; Haq et al., 1987;
Haq & Schutter, 2008). If present at a global scale nevertheless,
such lag would correspond to a shift of the curve of only a few
Ma toward younger ages, probably below the time resolution of
the plate tectonic models which typically have time slices (recon-
structions) every ~10 Ma. Be as it may, it implies that not only the
volume of oceanic water has not (or possibly little) varied over
the Phanerozoic, but the main variations of the eustatic sea level
curve are thus purely tectonic in origin.
2 | DISCUSSION
As the accuracy of the plate tectonics models and their associated
palæo- DEMs are subject to strong debate, let us consider the ‘pure’
tectonic signal can be removed from the se a- level curve merely using
a polynomial fit (‘volume of the container’; Figure 2a; Table S2). The
variations of the residuals (Figure 2c) can only be explained by the
climate conditions, and predominantly by the advance and retreat of
ice on continents (‘volume of contents’; note the thermal expansion
of the oceans can be neglected at that scale). When detrended, one
can note that the distribution of sea- level changes around the mean
is then much closer to a Gaussian distribution with 95% (2σ) of the
data within ±60.6 m (Figure 2d).
The fine oscillations of the residuals (in the order of a few Ma;
Figure S2; i.e., third- order oscillations, Figure 2a), based on the
identification of regression and transgression (Haq, 2018; Haq
et al., 1987; Haq & Schutter, 2008; Table S1), are always present
throughout the Phanerozoic, suggesting that continental ice has al-
ways been there, even during the period of so- called greenhouse
conditions (see also Bornemann et al., 2008). One may argue that
δ18O records, in particular, lack evidence for significant water stor-
age in continental ice over long intervals during the Phanerozoic
(Grossman & Joachimski, 2020, 2022; Judd et al., 2022). On the con-
trary, proxy data such as δ13 C and δ18O (e.g., Gradstein et al., 2020)
are usually sparser than sea level based on onlaps identification and
their variations are subject to more intertwined and complex causes.
Furthermore, such proxy data do exhibit short- term oscillations as
well, which can also be interpreted in terms of sea- level changes
associated with variable continental ice volume. In addition, even
longer wave- length oscillations of the sea- level curve (Figure 4),
Statement of significance
The long- wave fluctuations of the sea- level curve over the
Phanerozoic are found to be related to the plate tectonic
configuration and activity (volume of the container). Once
detrended from the long- wave fluctuations, the short-
wave oscillations are (1) always present throughout the
Phanerozoic, meaning that advances and retreat of con-
tinental ice always exist (volume of contents) and (2) the
distribution of the oscillations is close to a Gauss curve,
with spread of ±60.6 m (2σ) around the baseline. Despite
uncertainties, the paper shows that this statement is now
supported by values derived from quantified global palæo-
geographic maps. Aiming at using a consensual method for
detrending the curve, the paper shows it is however pos-
sible for the first time to obtain a quantified estimate of
the volume of continental ice throughout the Phanerozoic.
Hence, the paper breaks the dogma of long periods of
greenhouse and icehouse regimes.
FIGURE 1 Global climate from 1000 Ma in the past to 100 Ma in the future, redrawn after Craig et al. (2009). Greenhouse (red zone) to
icehouse (blue zone) climate conditions are shown with long- standing strips. Q: Quaternary; Ng: Neogene; Pg: Palæogene; K: Cretaceous
(with Lw., lower, and Up., upper); J: Jurassic; T: Triassic; P: Permian; C: Carboniferous; D: Devonian; S: Silurian; O: Ordovician; Cb: Cambrian;
E: Ediacaran; Cr: Cryogenian; Tn: Tonian (International Chronostratigaphic Chart, v.2021).
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FIGURE 2 (a) Sea level curve after (Haq, 2018; Haq & Schutter, 2008; Haq et al., 1987, rescaled to the International Chronostratigaphic
Chart, v.2021), with linear fit (red line), and polynomial fit of degrees 10 (green curve); (b) Histogram of the sea level shown in (a), with
Gaussian fit (pink curve) shown for comparison only since the distribution is clearly not Gaussian; (c) Residual sea level when polynomial
trend is removed (becoming the horizontal green line); (d) Histogram of the residuals shown in (c), with Gaussian fit (pink curve); see statistics
in Table S2.
FIGURE 3 Sketch showing the effect of plate tectonics on the sea level; fast (slow) spreading rates at mid- oceanic ridge makes the sea
floor swell (deflate) and the ocean basin volume to decrease (increase), leading the sea level to rise (drop) and flood (or not) the continents,
even if the area of the basin is equivalent.
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in the order of 30–50 Ma (Table S2; i.e., second- order oscillations,
Figure 2a), are more frequent (Figure S2; see also Boulila, 2019;
Boulila et al., 2018, 2021 for more detailed spectral analyses) than
the usually proposed alternate between greenhouse and icehouse
conditions (Figure 1).
In the present- day world (from 1992 to 2016), if all continen-
tal ice would melt, a large volume of water would be added to the
ocean, which would correspond to a sea- level rise of 65.5 ± 1.0 m
(IPCC, 2013; Bamber et al., 2018; Table S3). This value is just above
the 95% (2σ) bound (i.e., ±60.6 m) of the detrended sea- level curve
(Figure 2d), from which one can infer that all time intervals where
this threshold is crossed most likely correspond to a complete disap-
pearance of any ice cap on Earth. Contrary to the common view for
greenhouse conditions (Figure 1), such configurations only occurred
sporadically (i.e., when triangles are shown in Figure 4b) throughout
the Phanerozoic and for short periods of time (Table S3).
Considering the melting of all current continental ice would cor-
respond to crossing the threshold of the upper 95% (2σ) bound (i.e.,
FIGURE 4 (a) Continental ice volume estimate (ice blue; left y axis in log- scale) derived from the residual sea- level curve (shown in
Figure 2c); (b) Peak icehouse (+1) and greenhouse (−1) regimes (Tables S3 and S4) mark time intervals where the residual sea- level curves
excess the 95% (2σ) bounds (highlighted with red and blue triangles). For comparison, (c) palæo- latitudinal extents of glaciogenic detritus are
shown, after Royer et al. (2004; green) and Veizer et al. (2000; ruby red, PIRD—palæolatitudinal ice- rafted debris, and yellow, OGD—other
glacial deposits; right y axis with inverted scale), and (d) the residual curve (SLE, sea- level equivalent; left y axis; same as per Figure 2c) is
colour- coded to highlight the icehouse (blue) to greenhouse (red) climate regimes. Abbreviations for periods as per Figure 1.
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VÉRARD
+60.6 m) of the detrended sea- level curve (Figure 4d), the residual
sea- level curve can be converted into an estimate of continental ice
volume for the Phanerozoic (Figure 4a; Tables S3 and S4).
One can see that glacial time intervals (icehouse regime) do not
compare well with the palæolatitudinal glaciogenic deposits re-
ported in the literature (Figure 4c), possibly for three main reasons:
(1) the time resolution (and to some extent, the chronostratigraphic
chart then used) is not sufficient to compare well with the fine os-
cillations of the sea- level curve, (2) some discrepancy exists in the
literature regarding the recording of such deposits and (3) there
might be a preservation bias, in particular because continental ice
sheets may have been located in the southern hemisphere (where
Gondwana was; e.g., Vérard, 2021) and more specifically in the vi-
cinity of Antarctica.
3 | CONCLUSION
In conclusion, hot time intervals (greenhouse) during which plants
or animals could easily conquer the poles or, on the contrary, cold
time intervals (icehouse) during which ice sheets could reach low
latitudes, can be defined from the spread of ±60.6 m (2σ) around
the baseline (detrended curve). Hence, it is proposed that the
greenhouse and icehouse climate regimes shall be much shorter
in duration than generally envisaged (‘peaks’ instead of ‘humps’),
and continental ice volume can be estimated throughout the
Phanerozoic at least.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the Sinergia PaleoC4 group, funded by the Fond National
Suisse (FNS; Grant number CRSII5 180253), for encouraging me
in the development of the Panalesis model in parallel to work done
sensu stricto in the framework of the Sinergia project. Special
thanks to Charline Ragon, Maura Brunetti and Jérôme Kasparian for
the discussions and the first feedbacks and comments on the draft
manuscript. The reviewers of the manuscript are warmly thanked for
their valuable and helpful comments, which definitely improved the
manuscript. Open access funding provided by Universite de Geneve.
DATA AVAIL ABILI TY STATEMENT
The data that supports the findings of this study are available in the
supplementary material of this article.
ORCID
Christian Vérard https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9560-6969
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SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional supporting information can be found online in the
Supporting Information section at the end of this article.
Figure S1.
Figure S2.
Data S1.
How to cite this article: Vérard, C. (2024). On greenhouse
and icehouse climate regimes over the Phanerozoic. Terr a
Nova, 00, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1111/ter.12711
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