New developments in Cenozoic paleoceanography include the application of climate models and atmospheric general circulation models to questions of climate reconstruction, the refinement of conceptual models for interpretation of the carbon isotope record in terms of carbon mass balance, paleocirculation, paleoproductivity, and the regional mapping of paleoceanographic events by acoustic stratigraphy. Sea level change emerges as a master variable to which changes in the ocean environment must be traced in many cases, and tests of the onlap‐offlap paradigm therefore are of crucial importance.
