Paleoclimate data-model comparison and the role of climate forcings over the past 1500 years

SJ Phipps; HV Mcgregor; J Gergis; AJE Gallant; R Neukom; S Stevenson; D Ackerley; JR Brown; MJ Fischer; TD Van Ommen

Journal article

Paleoclimate data-model comparison and the role of climate forcings over the past 1500 years

SJ Phipps, HV Mcgregor, J Gergis, AJE Gallant, R Neukom, S Stevenson, D Ackerley, JR Brown, MJ Fischer, TD Van Ommen

Journal of Climate | Published : 2013

DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00108.1

Abstract

The past 1500 years provide a valuable opportunity to study the response of the climate system to external forcings. However, the integration of paleoclimate proxies with climate modeling is critical to improving the understanding of climate dynamics. In this paper, a climate system model and proxy records are therefore used to study the role of natural and anthropogenic forcings in driving the global climate. The inverse and forward approaches to paleoclimate data-model comparison are applied, and sources of uncertainty are identified and discussed. In the first of two case studies, the climate model simulations are compared with multiproxy temperature reconstructions. Robust solar and volc..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Joelle Gergis Author

Josephine Brown Author

Related Projects (1)

Reconstructing pre-20th century rainfall, temperature and pressure for south-eastern Australia using palaeoclimate, documentary and early weather station data.

South-eastern Australia is in the grip of a severe water crisis due to the worst drought in recorded history and increasing temperatures. Th..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

This research was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects and Linkage Projects funding schemes (Projects DP1092945 and LP0990151). This work was also supported by an award from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and by an award under the Merit Allocation Scheme on the NCI National Facility at the Australian National University. HVM is supported by an AINSE Research Fellowship. The authors wish to acknowledge use of the Ferret program for analysis and graphics in this paper (http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/). The anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations of MacFarling Meure et al. (2006) were supplied by David Etheridge. We thank NOAA for supporting the production of this special issue of Journal of Climate. Comments by David Frank, Andrew Lorrey, and three anonymous reviewers have greatly improved this manuscript.