Bridging the gap between the terrestrial and marine paleoclimate reconstructions in the North Atlantic realm

Climate field reconstruction (CFR) techniques have become common tools for studying terrestrial climate variability across various time and space scales^1,2. Here, we present the framework of ensemble-based CFR of sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean, using a Bayesian hierarchical model⁵ and the proxy surrogate reconstruction method⁶. Methodological development is necessary in order to take properly into account the age-depth uncertainties that is specific to proxies originating from marine sediment cores, and the generally low temporal resolution of the data. The new reconstructions will provide evidence on linkages and mechanisms between the marine realm and European climate including extremes covering the past 2000 years. The spatiotemporal covariance-structures of the input and output data are of special relevance, and the benchmarking datasets can be used for various impact studies and for paleomodel/data comparison and process understanding coupling the North Atlantic with Eurasia.

 

References:

¹Luterbacher, J. & Zorita, E. in “The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History”, (2018), Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature Limited,London, 131-140, ISBN 978-1-137-43020-5 (eBook), doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5

²Neukom, R. et al. (2019), Nature, 571, 550–554, doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1401-2

³ Tingley, M. P. and P. Huybers (2010a), J. Clim., 23, 2759–2781, doi: 10.1175/2009JCLI3015.1

⁴ Graham, N.E. et al. (2007), Clim. Change, 83, 241-285, doi: 10.1007/s10584-007-9239-2