Journal article

Pollen-based continental climate reconstructions at 6 and 21 ka: A global synthesis

PJ Bartlein, SP Harrison, S Brewer, S Connor, BAS Davis, K Gajewski, J Guiot, TI Harrison-Prentice, A Henderson, O Peyron, IC Prentice, M Scholze, H Seppä, B Shuman, S Sugita, RS Thompson, AE Viau, J Williams, H Wu

Climate Dynamics | Published : 2011

Open access

Abstract

Subfossil pollen and plant macrofossil data derived from 14C-dated sediment profiles can provide quantitative information on glacial and interglacial climates. The data allow climate variables related to growing-season warmth, winter cold, and plant-available moisture to be reconstructed. Continental-scale reconstructions have been made for the mid-Holocene (MH, around 6 ka) and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, around 21 ka), allowing comparison with palaeoclimate simulations currently being carried out as part of the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The synthesis of the available MH and LGM climate reconstructions and their uncertainties, obtained us..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Science Foundation


Funding Acknowledgements

This paper was initiated at a workshop funded by QUEST (Quantifying Uncertainties in the Earth System), a programme of the UK Natural Environment Research Council, and Project 0801 (Evaluation of PMIP Palaeoclimate Model Simulations) of the International Quaternary Association (INQUA). The paper is a contribution to ongoing work of the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Programme. Regional dataset compilations and the work of individual co-authors has been funded by the QUEST (Quantifying Uncertainties in the Earth System) programme (SPH, ICP, TIH-P), the UK Natural Environment Research Council (SPH, ICP, MS), the US National Science Foundation (PJB, SB, BS, JWW), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) (KEG, AV). We thank Tom Webb for his extensive review of the manuscript, and Pascale Braconnot for comments on the manuscript. The gridded data sets are available as text (.csv) or net-CDF files in the Electronic Supplementary Material.