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Updated: Jan 18, 2026

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Pleistocene terrestrial warming trend in East Asia linked to Antarctic ice sheets growth
Huanye Wang1, Weiguo Liu2,3, Zhonghui Liu4,5
1State Key Laboratory of Loess Science, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China. wanghy@ieecas.cn.
Abstract:
How terrestrial mean annual temperature (MAT) evolved throughout the past 2 million years (Myr) remains elusive, limiting our understanding of the patterns, mechanisms, and impacts of past temperature changes. Here we report a ~2-Myr terrestrial MAT record based on fossil microbial lipids preserved in the Heqing paleolake, East Asia. The increased amplitude and periodicity shift of glacial-interglacial changes in our record align with those in sea surface temperature (SST) records. However, its long-term warming trend (1.0 °C/Myr, 95% CI = 0.4-1.7 °C/Myr) during 1.8-0.6 Myr ago diverges from the contemporaneous SST cooling. We propose that the Pleistocene warming in East Asia primarily resulted from regionally enhanced heat input and greenhouse effect of rising water vapor driven by Antarctic ice sheets (AIS) growth, highlighting the important climatic effect of AIS evolution. Such long-term warming across the Mid-Pleistocene Transition might have been beneficial for archaic humans' flourishing in Eurasia.
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