Climate of the 6th Century based on the Fully Forced Regional Climate Model COSMO-CLM over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Nile Basin

The interactions and feedbacks between climate stress and social systems are currently the focus of interest for the scientific community and the general public. Understanding how paleo societies responded to extreme climate conditions is important for gaining insight into current and future climate concerns. The East Mediterranean (EM) and the Nile River basin (NR) are ideal areas for scientific and historical studies and modelling experiments due to the abundance of proxy and historical data. The 6^th century AD is of particular interest from both a historical and scientific perspective, as it coincides with a period of prosperity for the Eastern Byzantine Empire and political stability, but which also experienced a plague pandemic and significant climate variability in parallel or as a result of a major cluster of volcanic eruptions. To investigate these events and the climate variability in the 6th century in more detail, a transient paleo-simulation is carried out with the appropriately adjusted regional climate model COSMO-CLM (COSMO 5.0 clm16). The regional climate model is driven by the global MPI-ESM-LR at 0.44° for the last 2500 years. The state-of-the-art external forcings of the CMIP6 compliant Earth System Model comprise of volcanic (stratospheric aerosol optical depth), orbital (eccentricity, obliquity, longitude), solar (irradiance), land-use (leaf area index and plant coverage) and greenhouse-gas (CO2 equivalent) changes, implemented in the regional climate model. The simulated temperature and precipitation will be compared with those of other CMIP6 models, and proxy records. This research will provide a comprehensive interpretation of the regional climate and its impacts during the 6th century AD in the Mediterranean.

 

Reference

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