Browsing by Author "Bothe, O."
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- ItemClimate of the last millennium: Ensemble consistency of simulations and reconstructions(Göttingen : Copernicus, 2013) Bothe, O.; Jungclaus, J.H.; Zanchettin, D.; Zorita, E.Are simulations and reconstructions of past climate and its variability consistent with each other? We assess the consistency of simulations and reconstructions for the climate of the last millennium under the paradigm of a statistically indistinguishable ensemble. In this type of analysis, the null hypothesis is that reconstructions and simulations are statistically indistinguishable and, therefore, are exchangeable with each other. Ensemble consistency is assessed for Northern Hemisphere mean temperature, Central European mean temperature and for global temperature fields. Reconstructions available for these regions serve as verification data for a set of simulations of the climate of the last millennium performed at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. Consistency is generally limited to some sub-domains and some sub-periods. Only the ensemble simulated and reconstructed annual Central European mean temperatures for the second half of the last millennium demonstrates unambiguous consistency. Furthermore, we cannot exclude consistency of an ensemble of reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature with the simulation ensemble mean. If we treat simulations and reconstructions as equitable hypotheses about past climate variability, the found general lack of their consistency weakens our confidence in inferences about past climate evolutions on the considered spatial and temporal scales. That is, our available estimates of past climate evolutions are on an equal footing but, as shown here, inconsistent with each other.
- ItemInter-hemispheric asymmetry in the sea-ice response to volcanic forcing simulated by MPI-ESM (COSMOS-Mill)(Göttingen : Copernicus, 2014) Zanchettin, D.; Bothe, O.; Timmreck, C.; Bader, J.; Beitsch, A.; Graf, H.-F.; Notz, D.; Jungclaus, J.H.The decadal evolution of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice following strong volcanic eruptions is investigated in four climate simulation ensembles performed with the COSMOS-Mill version of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model. The ensembles differ in the magnitude of the imposed volcanic perturbations, with sizes representative of historical tropical eruptions (1991 Pinatubo and 1815 Tambora) and of tropical and extra-tropical "supervolcano" eruptions. A post-eruption Arctic sea-ice expansion is robustly detected in all ensembles, while Antarctic sea ice responds only to supervolcano eruptions, undergoing an initial short-lived expansion and a subsequent prolonged contraction phase. Strong volcanic forcing therefore emerges as a potential source of inter-hemispheric interannual-to-decadal climate variability, although the inter-hemispheric signature is weak in the case of eruptions comparable to historical eruptions. The post-eruption inter-hemispheric decadal asymmetry in sea ice is interpreted as a consequence mainly of the different exposure of Arctic and Antarctic regional climates to induced meridional heat transport changes and of dominating local feedbacks that set in within the Antarctic region. Supervolcano experiments help to clarify differences in simulated hemispheric internal dynamics related to imposed negative net radiative imbalances, including the relative importance of the thermal and dynamical components of the sea-ice response. Supervolcano experiments could therefore serve the assessment of climate models' behavior under strong external forcing conditions and, consequently, favor advancements in our understanding of simulated sea-ice dynamics.