Climate of the Past Discussions www.clim-past-discuss.net 1814-9340 1814-9359 5 4 2009 10.5194/cpd-5-2053-2009 http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/2053/2009/ http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/2053/2009/cpd-5-2053-2009.html http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/2053/2009/cpd-5-2053-2009.pdf 2053 2080 2009-07-29 The importance of paleoclimate modelling for improving predictions of future climate change J. C. Hargreaves jules@jamstec.go.jp J. D. Annan Global Change Projection Research Program, Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama City, Kanagawa, 236-0001, Japan We use an ensemble of runs from the MIROC3.2 AGCM with slab-ocean to explore the extent to which mid-Holocene simulations are relevant to predictions of future climate change. The results are compared with similar analyses for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and pre-industrial control climate. We find evidence that the paleoclimate epochs can provide some independent validation of the models that is also relevant for future predictions. Considering the paleoclimate epochs, we find that the stronger global forcing and hence larger climate change at the LGM makes this likely to be the more powerful one for estimating the large-scale changes that are anticipated due to anthropogenic forcing. The regions from the mid-Holocene simulations which produce significant results (mid to high northern latitude land temperature and monsoon precipitation) do, however, coincide with areas where the LGM results are weak, and are also areas where the paleodata indicate significant climate changes have occurred. Thus, these areas should be a high priority for model improvement and validation. Annan, J D., Hargreaves, J C., Ohgaito, R., Abe-Ouchi, A., and Emori, S.: Efficiently constraining climate sensitivity with paleoclimate simulations, SOLA, 1, 181–184, 2005. Arnold~Jr., C. and Dey, C.: Observing-systems simulation experiments: Past, present, and future, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 67, 687–695, 1986. Berger, A.: A simple algorithm to compute long term variations of daily or monthly insolation, Tech. Rep 18, Universitè Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 1978. Bigelow, N., Brubaker, L., Edwards, M., et~al.: Climate change and Arctic ecosystems: 1. Vegetation changes north of 55 N between the last glacial maximum, mid-Holocene, and present, J. Geophys. Res, 108, 8170, \doi10.1029/2002JD002558, 2003. Braconnot, P., Otto-Bliesner, B., Harrison, S., Joussaume, S., Peterchmitt, J.-Y., Abe-Ouchi, A., Crucifix, M., Driesschaert, E., Fichefet, Th., Hewitt, C. D., Kageyama, M., Kitoh, A., La\^iné, A., Loutre, M.-F., Marti, O., Merkel, U., Ramstein, G., Valdes, P., Weber, S. L., Yu, Y., and Zhao, Y.: Results of PMIP2 coupled simulations of the Mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum - Part 1: experiments and large-scale features, Clim. Past, 3, 261–277, 2007a. Braconnot, P., Otto-Bliesner, B., Harrison, S., Joussaume, S., Peterchmitt, J.-Y., Abe-Ouchi, A., Crucifix, M., Driesschaert, E., Fichefet, Th., Hewitt, C. D., Kageyama, M., Kitoh, A., Loutre, M.-F., Marti, O., Merkel, U., Ramstein, G., Valdes, P., Weber, L., Yu, Y., and Zhao, Y.: Results of PMIP2 coupled simulations of the Mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum - Part 2: feedbacks with emphasis on the location of the ITCZ and mid- and high latitudes heat budget, Clim. Past, 3, 279–296, 2007b. Crucifix, M.: Does the Last Glacial Maximum constrain climate sensitivity?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L18701, \doi10.1029/2006GL027137, 2006. Hargreaves, J. C., Abe-Ouchi, A., and Annan, J. D.: Linking glacial and future climates through an ensemble of GCM simulations, Clim. Past, 3, 77–87, 2007. Jolly, D., Harrison, S., Damnati, B., and Bonnefille, R.: Simulated climate and biomes of Africa during the late quaternary comparison with pollen and lake status data, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 17, 629–657, 1998. Joussaume, S. and Braconnot, P.: Sensitivity of paleoclimate simulation results to season definitions, J. Geophys. Res, 102, 1943–1956, 1997. Joussaume, S., Taylor, K., Bracconot, P., et~al.: Monsoon changes for 6000 years ago: results of 18 simulations from the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 859–862, 1999. Knutti, R., Meehl, G., Allen, M., and Stainforth, D.: Constraining climate sensitivity from the seasonal cycle in surface temperature, J. Climate, 19, 4224–4233, 2006. Meehl, G A., Stocker, T F., Collins, W D., et~al.: Global Climate Projections. In Climate Change 2007: The physical science basis. Contribution of the Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA., 2007. Mitchell, J.: Greenhouse warming: Is the Mid-Holocene a good analogue?, J. Climate, 3, 1177–1192, 1990. Ohgaito, R. and Abe-Ouchi, A.: The role of ocean thermodynamics and dynamics in Asian summer monsoon changes during the mid-Holocene, Clim. Dynam., 29, 39–50, 2007. O'ishi, R. and Abe-Ouchi, A.: Influence of dynamic vegetation on climate change arising from increasing CO₂, Clim. Dynam., \doi10.1007/s00382-009-0611-y, in press, 2009. Schneider von Deimling, T., Held, H., Ganopolski, A., and Rahmstorf, S.: Climate sensitivity estimated from ensemble simulations of glacial climate, Clim. Dynam., 27, 149–163, 2006. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., et~al.: Climate change 2007: The physical science basis. Contribution of the Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007. Tarasov, P., Guiot, J., Cheddadi, R., et~al.: Climate in northern Eurasia 6000 years ago reconstructed from pollen data, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 171, 635–645, 1999. Tsushima, Y. and Manabe, S.: Influence of cloud-feedback on annual variation of global mean surface temperature, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 22635–22646, 2001. Whetton, P., Macadam, I., Bathols, J., and O'Grady, J.: Assessment of the use of current climate patterns to evaluate regional enhanced greenhouse response patterns of climate models, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L14701, \doi10.1029/2007GL030025, 2007. Yokohata, T., Webb, M., Collins, M., et~al.: Structural similarities and differences in climate responses to CO₂ increase between two perturbed physics ensembles by general circulation models, J. Climate, submitted, 2009.