DeepMIP-Eocene: A window to a super-warm world, 50 million years ago, through an model-model-proxy-proxy intercomparison approach

DeepMIP-Eocene is a community project dedicated to improving our understanding of the super-warm Eocene climate, ~50 million years ago. The objectives of the DeepMIP group include fostering closer links between the palaeoclimate modelling and data communities; designing and carrying out paleoclimate model simulations; creating and synthesising datasets to enable meaningful model-data comparisons; and analysing the results with the aims of evaluating the models, understanding the reasons behind the model-model and model-data differences, and, where possible, providing suggestions for model improvements.

DeepMIP-Eocene is nearing completion of its first phase.  In this talk, I will present the key results to emerge from this first phase.  This includes the large-scale modelled features of the Eocene climate (including the causes of polar amplification), model-data comparisons (including an assessment of whether models have improved over time), climate and Earth system sensitivity (derived from both proxies and models), ocean circulation (including an assessment of likely regions of deep water formation),  sea ice and Arctic climate,  and African and Australian hydroclimate.

I will finish with an outlook to the next phase of DeepMIP-Eocene, including new aspects of the experimental design and novel analyses.