A method for generating coherent spatially explicit maps of seasonal palaeoclimates from site-based reconstructions
File(s)
Author(s)
Cleator, Sean F
Harrison, Sandy P
Nichols, Nancy K
Prentice, Iain C
Roulstone, Ian
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We describe a method for reconstructing spatially explicit maps of seasonal palaeoclimate variables from site‐based reconstructions. Using a 3D‐Variational technique, the method finds the best statistically unbiased, and spatially continuous, estimate of the palaeoclimate anomalies through combining the site‐based reconstructions and a prior estimate of the palaeoclimate state. By assuming a set of correlations in the error of the prior, the resulting climate is smoothed both from month to month and from grid cell to grid cell. The amount of smoothing can be controlled through the choice of two length‐scale values. The method is applied to a set of reconstructions of the climate of the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 21,000 years ago, yr BP) for southern Europe derived from pollen data with a prior derived from results from the third phase of the Palaeoclimate Intercomparison Project (PMIP3). We demonstrate how to choose suitable values for the smoothing length scales from the datasets used in the reconstruction.
Date Issued
2019-10-14
Date Acceptance
2019-09-26
Citation
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2019
ISSN
1942-2466
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Copyright Statement
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Sponsor
AXA Research Fund
Commission of the European Communities
Grant Number
AXA Chair Programme in Biosphere and Climate Impacts
787203
Publication Status
Published online
Date Publish Online
2019-10-14