Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations
The improvement in resolution of climate models has always been mentioned as one of the most important factors when investigating past climatic conditions, especially in order to evaluate and compare the results against proxy data. Despite this, only a few studies have tried to directly estimate the...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:cp49473 2023-05-15T17:37:06+02:00 Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations Russo, Emmanuele Cubasch, Ulrich 2018-09-27 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-1645-2016 https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/12/1645/2016/ eng eng doi:10.5194/cp-12-1645-2016 https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/12/1645/2016/ eISSN: 1814-9332 Text 2018 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-1645-2016 2020-07-20T16:24:02Z The improvement in resolution of climate models has always been mentioned as one of the most important factors when investigating past climatic conditions, especially in order to evaluate and compare the results against proxy data. Despite this, only a few studies have tried to directly estimate the possible advantages of highly resolved simulations for the study of past climate change. Motivated by such considerations, in this paper we present a set of high-resolution simulations for different time slices of the mid-to-late Holocene performed over Europe using the state-of-the-art regional climate model COSMO-CLM. After proposing and testing a model configuration suitable for paleoclimate applications, the aforementioned mid-to-late Holocene simulations are compared against a new pollen-based climate reconstruction data set, covering almost all of Europe, with two main objectives: testing the advantages of high-resolution simulations for paleoclimatic applications, and investigating the response of temperature to variations in the seasonal cycle of insolation during the mid-to-late Holocene. With the aim of giving physically plausible interpretations of the mismatches between model and reconstructions, possible uncertainties of the pollen-based reconstructions are taken into consideration. Focusing our analysis on near-surface temperature, we can demonstrate that concrete advantages arise in the use of highly resolved data for the comparison against proxy-reconstructions and the investigation of past climate change. Additionally, our results reinforce previous findings showing that summertime temperatures during the mid-to-late Holocene were driven mainly by changes in insolation and that the model is too sensitive to such changes over Southern Europe, resulting in drier and warmer conditions. However, in winter, the model does not correctly reproduce the same amplitude of changes evident in the reconstructions, even if it captures the main pattern of the pollen data set over most of the domain for the time periods under investigation. Through the analysis of variations in atmospheric circulation we suggest that, even though the wintertime discrepancies between the two data sets in some areas are most likely due to high pollen uncertainties, in general the model seems to underestimate the changes in the amplitude of the North Atlantic Oscillation, overestimating the contribution of secondary modes of variability. Text North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Climate of the Past 12 8 1645 1662 |
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English |
description |
The improvement in resolution of climate models has always been mentioned as one of the most important factors when investigating past climatic conditions, especially in order to evaluate and compare the results against proxy data. Despite this, only a few studies have tried to directly estimate the possible advantages of highly resolved simulations for the study of past climate change. Motivated by such considerations, in this paper we present a set of high-resolution simulations for different time slices of the mid-to-late Holocene performed over Europe using the state-of-the-art regional climate model COSMO-CLM. After proposing and testing a model configuration suitable for paleoclimate applications, the aforementioned mid-to-late Holocene simulations are compared against a new pollen-based climate reconstruction data set, covering almost all of Europe, with two main objectives: testing the advantages of high-resolution simulations for paleoclimatic applications, and investigating the response of temperature to variations in the seasonal cycle of insolation during the mid-to-late Holocene. With the aim of giving physically plausible interpretations of the mismatches between model and reconstructions, possible uncertainties of the pollen-based reconstructions are taken into consideration. Focusing our analysis on near-surface temperature, we can demonstrate that concrete advantages arise in the use of highly resolved data for the comparison against proxy-reconstructions and the investigation of past climate change. Additionally, our results reinforce previous findings showing that summertime temperatures during the mid-to-late Holocene were driven mainly by changes in insolation and that the model is too sensitive to such changes over Southern Europe, resulting in drier and warmer conditions. However, in winter, the model does not correctly reproduce the same amplitude of changes evident in the reconstructions, even if it captures the main pattern of the pollen data set over most of the domain for the time periods under investigation. Through the analysis of variations in atmospheric circulation we suggest that, even though the wintertime discrepancies between the two data sets in some areas are most likely due to high pollen uncertainties, in general the model seems to underestimate the changes in the amplitude of the North Atlantic Oscillation, overestimating the contribution of secondary modes of variability. |
format |
Text |
author |
Russo, Emmanuele Cubasch, Ulrich |
spellingShingle |
Russo, Emmanuele Cubasch, Ulrich Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations |
author_facet |
Russo, Emmanuele Cubasch, Ulrich |
author_sort |
Russo, Emmanuele |
title |
Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations |
title_short |
Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations |
title_full |
Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations |
title_fullStr |
Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Mid-to-late Holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over Europe in regional model simulations |
title_sort |
mid-to-late holocene temperature evolution and atmospheric dynamics over europe in regional model simulations |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-1645-2016 https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/12/1645/2016/ |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
op_source |
eISSN: 1814-9332 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/cp-12-1645-2016 https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/12/1645/2016/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-1645-2016 |
container_title |
Climate of the Past |
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12 |
container_issue |
8 |
container_start_page |
1645 |
op_container_end_page |
1662 |
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1766136824960385024 |