Ebook: The Climate in Historical Times: Towards a Synthesis of Holocene Proxy Data and Climate Models

An Introduction to the KIHZ Project The description of the climate system and the quantification of its natural variability and dynamics is essential to assess an ongoing anthropogenic cli­ mate change and to validate climate and biogeochemical models to allow for reliable projections into the future. Because the spatio-temporal coverage of direct meteorological observations is rather limited, high-resolution and ab­ solutely dated climate archives represent the only key to a quantification of seasonal to millenial climate variations in the past. Furthermore, climate mod­ els provide insights into the major processes and causes relevant for climate variability on these time scales. Both approaches represent one side of the same medal, however melting both sides down to one combined effort is often hampered by obstacles defined by the different nature of the approaches. For instance, General Circulation Models (GCMs) per se deal with spatially resolved data representing real climate variables in the model world (such as temperature or precipitation) with each model run reflecting one possible realization of climate history under given boundary conditions. In contrast, the records of natural climate archives are influenced by climate variations as they took place in reality, however, are often representative of local climate conditions only. Moreover, the climate information deduced from natural archives is in nearly all cases based on climate proxies, whose relationship to real climate variables, the so called transfer function, has to be established beforehand.

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The project "Climate in Historical Times" (KIHZ) represents an integrative approach by geoscientists and climate modellers to analyse the dynamics of natural climate variability during the Holocene. This volume summarises the outcome of a KIHZ summer school. The meeting dealt with a variety of topics related to natural climate variability, ranging from reconstructions of past climate using so-called "proxy data" derived from ice cores, lake sediments, tree rings and corals. These data are used to validate and assimilate climate models.

The first part of this volume provides an overview of the climate system and its dynamics. It uses climate models of differing complexity and the resources of different archives in order to reconstruct past climate. The second part describes the latest achievements of the KIHZ members in their endeavours to reconstruct past climate by using proxy data, statistical analyses and climate models.

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The project "Climate in Historical Times" (KIHZ) represents an integrative approach by geoscientists and climate modellers to analyse the dynamics of natural climate variability during the Holocene. This volume summarises the outcome of a KIHZ summer school. The meeting dealt with a variety of topics related to natural climate variability, ranging from reconstructions of past climate using so-called "proxy data" derived from ice cores, lake sediments, tree rings and corals. These data are used to validate and assimilate climate models.

The first part of this volume provides an overview of the climate system and its dynamics. It uses climate models of differing complexity and the resources of different archives in order to reconstruct past climate. The second part describes the latest achievements of the KIHZ members in their endeavours to reconstruct past climate by using proxy data, statistical analyses and climate models.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xxi
The Holocene: Considerations with Regard to its Climate and Climate Archives....Pages 1-12
Nonlinear Dynamics of the Climate System....Pages 13-41
A Discourse About Quasi-realistic Climate Models and Their Applications in Paleoclimatic Studies....Pages 43-55
Holocene Climate Variability from Model Simulations — State of the Art....Pages 57-75
Marine Paleoclimatology — Motivation, Tools, and Results....Pages 77-90
Corals as Climate Archive....Pages 91-108
Annually Laminated Lake Sediments and Their Palaeoclimatic Relevance....Pages 109-127
Interpreting Climate Proxies from Tree-rings....Pages 129-148
The Environmental and Climate Record in Polar Ice Cores....Pages 149-170
Reconstructing Large-scale Variability from Palaeoclimatic Evidence by Means of Data Assimilation Through Upscaling and Nudging(DATUN)....Pages 171-193
Mid- to Late Holocene Lake Ecosystem Response to Catchment and Climatic Changes — A Detailed Varve Analysis of Lake Holzmaar (Germany)....Pages 195-208
Holocene Palaeoclimate in the Saharo—Arabian Desert....Pages 209-227
Transfer Functions for Paleoclimate Reconstructions — Theory and Methods....Pages 229-243
Transfer Functions for Paleoclimate Reconstructions — Applications....Pages 245-262
Climate Information from Stable Hydrogen and Carbon Isotopes of C3 Plants — Growth Chamber Experiments and Field Observations....Pages 263-279
Detection of Climate Modes as Recorded in a Seasonal-resolution Coral Record Covering the Last 250 Years....Pages 281-292
Phase Stability of the Solar Schwabe Cycle in Lake Holzmaar, Germany, and GISP2, Greenland, between 10,000 and 9,000 cal. BP....Pages 293-317
Variable Freshwater Input to the Arctic Ocean During the Holocene: Implications for Large-Scale Ocean-Sea Ice Dynamics as Simulated by a Circulation Model....Pages 319-335
Forced Climate Variability During the Last Millennium with the Earth System Model CLIMBER-2....Pages 337-350
The Contribution of High-resolution Magnetostratigraphic Analyses to Paleoclimatic Reconstructions....Pages 351-363
Internal Climate Variability in Global and Regional Climate Models....Pages 365-382
Climate Diagnostics by Adjoint Modelling: A Feasibility Study....Pages 383-396
Evidence for the Climate During the Late Maunder Minimum from Proxy Data and Model Simulations Available Within KIHZ....Pages 397-414
Back Matter....Pages 415-487