Sensitivity of simulated oxygen isotopes in ice cores and speleothems to Last Glacial Maximum surface conditions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Paul ◽  
Alexandre Cauquoin ◽  
Stefan Mulitza ◽  
Thejna Tharammal ◽  
Martin Werner
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Surface Conditions ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Mean Square Errors

<p>In simulations of the climate during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), we employ two different isotope-enabled atmospheric general circulation models (NCAR iCAM3 and MPI ECHAM6-wiso) and use simulated (by coupled climate models) as well as reconstructed (from a new global climatology of the ocean surface duing the LGM, GLOMAP) surface conditions.</p><p>The resulting atmospheric fields reflect the more pronounced structure and gradients in the reconstructions, for example, the precipitation is more depleted in oxygen-18 in the high latitudes and more enriched in low latitudes, especially in the tropical convective regions over the maritime continent in the equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans and over the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, at the sites of ice cores and speleothems, the model-data fit improves in terms of the coefficients of determination and root-mean square errors.</p><p>In additional sensitivity experiments, we also use the climatologies by Annan and Hargreaves (2013) and Tierney et al. (2020) and consider the impact of changes in reconstructed sea-ice extent and the global-mean sea-surface temperature.</p><p>Our findings imply that the correct simulation or reconstruction of patterns and gradients in sea-surface conditions are crucial for a successful comparison to oxygen-isotope data from ice cores and speleothems.</p>

scholarly journals How cold was Europe at the Last Glacial Maximum? A synthesis of the progress achieved since the first PMIP model-data comparison

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Ramstein ◽  
M. Kageyama ◽  
J. Guiot ◽  
H. Wu ◽  
C. Hély ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Data Comparison ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
Winter Cooling ◽  
The Last Glacial

Abstract. The Last Glacial Maximum has been one of the first foci of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP). During its first phase, the results of 17 atmosphere general circulation models were compared to paleoclimate reconstructions. One of the largest discrepancies in the simulations was the systematic underestimation, by at least 10°C, of the winter cooling over Europe and the Mediterranean region observed in the pollen-based reconstructions. In this paper, we investigate the progress achieved to reduce this inconsistency through a large modelling effort and improved temperature reconstructions. We show that increased model spatial resolution does not significantly increase the simulated LGM winter cooling. Further, neither the inclusion of a vegetation cover compatible with the LGM climate, nor the interactions with the oceans simulated by the atmosphere-ocean general circulation models run in the second phase of PMIP result in a better agreement between models and data. Accounting for changes in interannual variability in the interpretation of the pollen data does not result in a reduction of the reconstructed cooling. The largest recent improvement in the model-data comparison has instead arisen from a new climate reconstruction based on inverse vegetation modelling, which explicitly accounts for the CO2 decrease at LGM and which substantially reduces the LGM winter cooling reconstructed from pollen assemblages. As a result, the simulated and observed LGM winter cooling over Western Europe and the Mediterranean area are now in much better agreement.

scholarly journals Ice-sheet mass balance during the last glacial maximum

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles Ramstein ◽  
Adeline Fabre ◽  
Sophie Pinot ◽  
Catherine Ritz ◽  
Sylvie Joussaume
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Intercomparison Project ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
The Last Glacial

In the framework of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) have- been performed. More than 10 different atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) have been used with the same boundary conditions: sea-surface temperatures prescribed by CLIMAP (1981), ice-sheet reconstruction provided by Peltier (1994), change in insolation, and reduced CO2 content. One of the major questions is to investigate whether the simulations of the LGM are in equilibrium with the prescribed ice-sheet reconstruction. To answer this question, we have used two different approaches. First, we analyze the results of a sel of LGM simulations performed with different versions of the Laboratoire de Meteorolo-gie Dynamique (LMD) AGCM and study the hydrologic and snow- budgets over the Laurcntide and Fennoscandian ice sheets. Second, we use the AGCM outputs to force an ice-sheet model in order to investigate its ability to maintain the ice sheets as reconstructed by CLIMAP (1981) or Peltier (1994).

scholarly journals Ice-sheet mass balance during the last glacial maximum

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles Ramstein ◽  
Adeline Fabre ◽  
Sophie Pinot ◽  
Catherine Ritz ◽  
Sylvie Joussaume
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Intercomparison Project ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
The Last Glacial

In the framework of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) have- been performed. More than 10 different atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) have been used with the same boundary conditions: sea-surface temperatures prescribed by CLIMAP (1981), ice-sheet reconstruction provided by Peltier (1994), change in insolation, and reduced CO2 content. One of the major questions is to investigate whether the simulations of the LGM are in equilibrium with the prescribed ice-sheet reconstruction. To answer this question, we have used two different approaches. First, we analyze the results of a sel of LGM simulations performed with different versions of the Laboratoire de Meteorolo-gie Dynamique (LMD) AGCM and study the hydrologic and snow- budgets over the Laurcntide and Fennoscandian ice sheets. Second, we use the AGCM outputs to force an ice-sheet model in order to investigate its ability to maintain the ice sheets as reconstructed by CLIMAP (1981) or Peltier (1994).

scholarly journals How cold was Europe at the Last Glacial Maximum? A synthesis of the progress achieved since the first PMIP model-data comparison

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Ramstein ◽  
M. Kageyama ◽  
J. Guiot ◽  
H. Wu ◽  
C. Hély ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Data Comparison ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
Winter Cooling ◽  
The Last Glacial

Abstract. The Last Glacial Maximum has been one of the first foci of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP). During its first phase, the results of 17 atmosphere general circulation models were compared to paleoclimate reconstructions. One of the largest discrepancies in the simulations was the systematic underestimation, by at least 10°C, of the winter cooling over Europe and the Mediterranean region observed in the pollen-based reconstructions. In this paper, we investigate the progress achieved to reduce this inconsistency through a large modelling effort and improved temperature reconstructions. We show that increased model spatial resolution does not significantly increase the simulated LGM winter cooling. Further, neither the inclusion of a vegetation cover compatible with the LGM climate, nor the interactions with the oceans simulated by the atmosphere-ocean general circulation models run in the second phase of PMIP result in a better agreement between models and data. Accounting for changes in interannual variability in the interpretation of the pollen data does not result in a reduction of the reconstructed cooling. The largest recent improvement in the model-data comparison has instead arisen from a new climate reconstruction based on inverse vegetation modelling, which explicitly accounts for the CO2 decrease at LGM and which substantially reduces the LGM winter cooling reconstructed from pollen assemblages. As a result, the simulated and observed LGM winter cooling over Western Europe and the Mediterranean area are now in much better agreement.

Sensitivity of isotopes in the hydrological cycle to simulated vs. reconstructed Last Glacial Maximum surface conditions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Paul ◽  
Martin Werner ◽  
Alexandre Cauquoin ◽  
Javier García-Pintado ◽  
Ute Merkel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Ocean Surface ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Water Isotopes ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Direct Model ◽  
The Impact

<p><span>The evaluation of a specific component of a comprehensive climate model is often hindered by biases in the coupled system, in simulations of </span><span>the </span><span>present as well as </span><span>of </span><span>past climate conditions. To assess different implementations of water isotopes </span><span>as part of</span><span> the hydrological cycle, we carried out atmosphere-only runs using different atmospheric general circulation models (</span><span>AGCMs, here: CAM and ECHAM</span><span>) but the same pre-industrial and Last Glacial Maximum </span><span>(</span><span>LGM, ~</span><span>19,000 to ~23,000 a before present)</span><span> boundary conditions, especially </span><span>with respect to </span><span>the monthly </span><span>sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice fraction </span><span>fields</span><span>. For the LGM, we used a new global climatology of the ocean surface during the Last Glacial Maximum mapped on a regular grid (GLOMAP), which is an extension of the Glacial Atlantic Ocean Mapping (GLAMAP) reconstruction of the Atlantic SST based on the results of the Multiproxy Approach for the Reconstruction of the Glacial Ocean Surface (MARGO) project and several recent estimates of the LGM sea-ice extent. This way, we can, on the one hand, avoid the propagation of the SST bias in coupled climate models. </span><span>O</span><span>n the other hand, </span><span>by comparing to fully-coupled simulations,</span><span> we can isolate the impact of the ocean feedback on the simulated distributions of water isotopes over land, ice and ocean. To analyze the results, we calculated the anomal</span><span>ies</span><span> between the LGM and pre-industrial climate states and compared the</span><span>m</span><span> between the different models and to data. It turned out that </span><span>the </span><span>model response was affected by the amount of global cooling as well as the structure of the SST anomalies. T</span><span>he patterns in the simulated isotopic composition of precipitation for the LGM tended to follow the patterns in the SST boundary condition; a more zonal structure in the SST led to a more zonal response. Our results show the advantage of using water isotopes as a diagnostic tool for an AGCM th</span><span>r</span><span>ough direct model-data comparison.</span></p>

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