Last Glacial Maximum temperatures over the North Atlantic, Europe and western Siberia: a comparison between PMIP models, MARGO sea-surface temperatures and pollen-based reconstructions

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Kageyama, M., Laîné, A., Abe-Ouchi, A., Braconnot, P., Cortijo, Elsa, Crucifix, M., Vernal, A., Guiot, Joel, Hewitt, C. D., Kitoh, A., Kucera, M., Marti, O., Ohgaito, R., Otto-Bliesner, B., Peltier, W. R., Rosell-Melé, A., Vettoretti, G., Weber, S. L., Yu, Y., Members, MARGO Project
• Other Authors: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Modélisation du climat (CLIM), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Center for Climate System Research Kashiwa (CCSR), The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Modelling the Earth Response to Multiple Anthropogenic Interactions and Dynamics (MERMAID), Paléocéanographie (PALEOCEAN), Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change (MOHC), United Kingdom Met Office Exeter, Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement (CEREGE), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Meteorological Research Institute Tsukuba (MRI), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Institute of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen = Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen, Frontier Research Center for Global Change (FRCGC), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder (NCAR), Department of Physics Toronto, University of Toronto, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology Barcelona (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics Beijing (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS)-Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2006
• Subjects: [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic; Siberia
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01457694; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.02.010

International audience Evaluating the ability of models to simulate climates different from the modern one is important for climate prediction. Here we present a first comparison between results from simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum climate and continental and surface ocean reconstructions for the North Atlantic, Europe and western Siberia. The simulations include prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) and slab-ocean atmospheric general circulation model runs performed within the PMIP1 project, and atmosphere-ocean fully coupled runs performed after PMIP1 and within the PMIP2 project. The surface ocean reconstructions are from the MARGO project. Continental reconstructions are based on pollen data. Over the North Atlantic, most models simulate the strengthening of the SST meridional gradient suggested by the reconstructions, but most do not reproduce the LGM-control SST anomaly at the right location, nor with the right amplitude. Over western Siberia, the model results are much improved when a new ice-sheet reconstruction (ICE-5G) is used to force the models. The main discrepancy remains for western Europe winter temperatures, for which LGM-control anomalies are significantly underestimated by all models. All models indicate that this region during the LGM experienced significantly higher interannual variability in coldest-month temperatures compared to the control runs. This increased variability could have conspired to bias the apparently extremely cold pollen-based temperature reconstructions. Crown Copyright (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.