A key limitation of observational climate data is the length of the instrumental record. Yet the annually resolved nature of instrumental data is vital to characterize the complete range of historical climate variability. The Holocene offers a solution to extend the instrumental data framework, as global archives attributable to the Holocene record different climatic parameters. The investigation of these natural archives can reveal at (sub)annual, multi-decadal and centennial resolutions the scale, range and amplitude of climate variability during the present warm period, as well as extreme and rare events poorly sampled up to now. Increasingly, Holocene climates are shown to be dynamic with the detection of low frequency climate variability operating as individual episodes and as recurring modes (e.g. NAO, ENSO, AMV, PDV), both altering temperature and precipitation patterns spatiotemporally. Low frequency climate variability during the Holocene can be related to long term changes in orbital forcing, solar forcing and volcanism with associated feedbacks, but also to internal variability from changes to ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns.
It is only through the proxy detection, and data assimilation, of the complete range of Holocene climate that we can begin feed this learnt climate data into climate models to not only better understand the mechanisms of climate variability during different time periods but also to test climate model capability to reproduce this low frequency climate variability. The detection of the complete range of Holocene climate variability and validation of both proxies and models is therefore important for near-term and multi-decadal climate predictions and projections. These analyses are crucial both scientifically, but also societally to underpin climate policy and climate services, given projected future climate change.
This session welcomes:
- Traditional and novel approaches to reconstructing Holocene climate at (sub)annual to centennial scales.
- Transient climate model simulations of Holocene climate and the evaluation of climate models for future climate projection.
- Inter-proxy and climate model validation approaches to test the robustness of climate reconstructions.
- Approaches using data assimilation or machine learning to understand the total climate variability at different stages of the Holocene.
- Efforts to use resolved climate data as a tool for climate services and policy.