Identification

Title

Last glacial maximum and Holocene climate in CCSM3

Abstract

The climate sensitivity of the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3) is studied for two past climate forcings, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the mid-Holocene. The LGM, approximately 21 000 yr ago, is a glacial period with large changes in the greenhouse gases, sea level, and ice sheets. The mid-Holocene, approximately 6000 yr ago, occurred during the current interglacial with primary changes in the seasonal solar irradiance. The LGM CCSM3 simulation has a global cooling of 4.5°C compared to preindustrial (PI) conditions with amplification of this cooling at high latitudes and over the continental ice sheets present at LGM. Tropical sea surface temperature (SST) cools by 1.7°C and tropical land temperature cools by 2.6°C on average. Simulations with the CCSM3 slab ocean model suggest that about half of the global cooling is explained by the reduced LGM concentration of atmospheric CO2 (~50% of present-day concentrations). There is an increase in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Antarctic Bottom Water formation, and with increased ocean stratification, somewhat weaker and much shallower North Atlantic Deep Water. The mid-Holocene CCSM3 simulation has a global, annual cooling of less than 0.1°C compared to the PI simulation. Much larger and significant changes occur regionally and seasonally, including a more intense northern African summer monsoon, reduced Arctic sea ice in all months, and weaker ENSO variability.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7zg6ssr

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

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Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2006-06-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

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Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

Copyright 2006 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license form the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or copyright@ametsoc.org.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact