Orbital forcing in a stochastic resonance model of the Late-Pleistocene climatic variations

Applying a number of simplifying assumptions, we have used a zero-dimensional energy balance climate model (EBM) of the Budyko-Sellers type to investigate the degree to which the climatic variability of the Late Pleistocene can be explained by the mechanism of stochastic resonance. As a logical extension of an earlier version of this model we have included a more complete representation for the orbital forcings to show that a reasonably good agreement with the paleoclimatic record can be obtained. This zerodimensional EBM is appealing because of its simplicity and its ability to reproduce some of the most striking qualitative features of the observed climatic variability with a very limited number of parameters, several of which can be derived from either the observations or general circulation model (GCM) simulations of ice-age conditions.     

A non-linear climate oscillator controlled by biogeochemical cycling in the ocean: an alternative model of Quaternary ice age cycles

A new, biogeochemical model of ice age cycles is developed and applied which explains major features of climate variations in the late Quaternary —rapid ice age terminations, large glacial-interglacial amplitudes and 100-kyr cycles — in a way consistent with the paleorecord. Existing models which invoke non-linear, ice-sheet-earth-crust dynamics to explain ice age cycles are not consistent with simultaneous terminations in both hemispheres and other phase relationships implied by the paleorecord. The present model relates climate change to oscillations of oceanic primary (new) production controlled by the availability of inorganic nitrogen. Large oscillations follow shelf erosion events triggered by small sea-level drops. These drops are due to glacial buildup associated with a minimum in Northern Hemisphere insolation. Rapid global warming at terminations is initiated by open ocean denitrification events leading to new production crashes and rapid modification of atmospheric trace gas concentrations (CO₂, DMS, N₂O). Other feedbacks of the land-ice-atmosphere-ocean system control the rest of the climate cycle. 100-kyr cycles derive from orbital pacemaking of the strong, low-frequency model response. Results suggest that the climate regime transition near 800 kyr B.P. may be related to changes in the continental shelf slope, that existing chronologies based on orbital tuning may need to be revised and that temporary increases in atmospheric N₂O concentrations at terminations, due to the denitrification events, may have caused significant greenhouse warming. A spike of elevated N₂O concentration at terminations may be recorded in polar ice.     

A first-order global model of late Cenozoic climatic change II. Further analysis based on a simplification of CO2 dynamics

A model developed recently for the long-term variations of global ice mass, carbon dioxide, and mean ocean temperature through the late Cenozoic is simplified by hypothesizing a new equation for the CO₂ variations containing one less adjustable parameter, but retaining the essential physical content of the previous equation (including nonlinearity and the potential for instability). By assuming plausible time constants for the glacial ice mass and global mean ocean temperature, and setting the values of six adjustable parameters (rate constants), a solution for the last 5 My is obtained displaying many of the features observed over this period, including the transition to the near-100 ky major ice-age oscillations of the late Pleistocene. In obtaining this solution it is also assumed that variations in tectonic forcing lead to a reduction of the equilibrium CO₂ concentration (perhaps due to increased weathering of rapidly uplifted mountain ranges over this period). As a consequence of this CO₂ reduction, the model dynamical system can bifurcate to a free oscillatory ice-age regime that is under the pacemaker influence of earthorbital (Milankovitch) forcing. Expanded discussions are given of the surface temperature variations accompanying the evolution of ice, CO₂, and ocean temperature, and of the bifurcation properties of the model from both mathematical and physical viewpoints.This paper was presented at the International Conference on Modelling of Global Climate Change and Variability, held in Hamburg 11–15 September 1989 under the auspices of the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. Guest Editor for these papers is Dr. L. Dumenil     

Orbital forcing of Arctic climate: mechanisms of climate response and implications for continental glaciation

Progress in understanding how terrestrial ice volume is linked to Earths orbital configuration has been impeded by the cost of simulating climate system processes relevant to glaciation over orbital time scales (10³–10⁵ years). A compromise is usually made to represent the climate system by models that are averaged over one or more spatial dimensions or by three-dimensional models that are limited to simulating particular snapshots in time. We take advantage of the short equilibration time (10 years) of a climate model consisting of a three-dimensional atmosphere coupled to a simple slab ocean to derive the equilibrium climate response to accelerated variations in Earths orbital configuration over the past 165,000 years. Prominent decreases in ice melt and increases in snowfall are simulated during three time intervals near 26, 73, and 117 thousand years ago (ka) when aphelion was in late spring and obliquity was low. There were also significant decreases in ice melt and increases in snowfall near 97 and 142 ka when eccentricity was relatively large, aphelion was in late spring, and obliquity was high or near its long term mean. These glaciation-friendly time intervals correspond to prominent and secondary phases of terrestrial ice growth seen within the marine ¹⁸O record. Both dynamical and thermal effects contribute to the increases in snowfall during these periods, through increases in storm activity and the fraction of precipitation falling as snow. The majority of the mid- to high latitude response to orbital forcing is organized by the properties of sea ice, through its influence on radiative feedbacks that nearly double the size of the orbital forcing as well as its influence on the seasonal evolution of the latitudinal temperature gradient.     

过去0.8 Ma期间的地表温度数值模拟研究

使用一个改进的二维能量平衡模式模拟了过去0.8 Ma冰期-间冰期旋回期间北半球各纬度带的地表温度,并以65°N的地表温度为代表与南极冰芯记录进行了比较.通过敏感性试验,分析了日射量、温室气体、沙尘气溶胶强迫和水汽反馈的辐射-气候效应.结果显示,日射量变化不足以解释冰期-间冰期旋回期间北半球的地表温度变化,大气温室气体(...     

Farm-Level Adaptation to Climatic Variability and Change: Crop Diversification in the Canadian Prairies

Among other foci, recent research on adaptation to climatic variability and change has sought to evaluate the merit of adaptation generally, as well as the suitability of particular adaptations. Additionally, there is a need to better understand the likely uptake of adaptations. For example, diversification is one adaptation that has been identified as a potential farm-level response to climatic variability and change, but its adoption by farmers for this reason is not well understood. This paper serves two purposes. The first is to document the adoption of crop diversification in Canadian prairie agriculture for the period 1994–2002, reflect upon its strengths and limitations for managing a variety of risks, including climatic ones, and gauge its likely adoption by producers in response to anticipated climate change. The second purpose is to draw on this case to refine our current understanding of climate change adaptation more generally. Based upon data from over 15 000 operations, it was determined that individual farms have become more specialized in their cropping patterns since 1994, and this trend is unlikely to change in the immediate future, notwithstanding anticipated climate change and the known risk-reducing benefits of crop diversification. More broadly, the analysis suggests that suitable and even possible climate change adaptations need to be more rigorously assessed in order to understand their wider strengths and limitations.     

Multiple instabilities and modes of glacial rhythmicity in the plio-Pleistocene: a general theory of late Cenozoic climatic change

It has been noted that several distinct modes of glacial oscillation have existed during the past few million years, ranging from low-amplitude, high-frequency oscillations in the early Pliocene, through relatively high amplitude, predominantly near-40 ky period, oscillations in the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene, to the major near-100 ky period oscillations of the late Pleistocene. In addition to other plausible mechanisms suggested previously to explain aspects of this multirhythmic phenomenon, we now illustrate another possible contributor to this type of behavior based on the hypothesis that the slow-response climatic system is bistable and that two kinds of internal instability may be operative along with externally imposed forcing due to earth-orbital (Milankovitch) radiation changes and slow, tectonically-induced changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. These two instabilities have been discussed previously: one is due to positive feedback in the global carbon cycle leading to near-100 ky free oscillations of the ice sheets, and the other is due to the potential for ice-calving catastrophes associated with bedrock variations that can lead to oscillations of a period near 40 ky, independent of obliquity forcing. Within the framework of a dynamical model containing the possibility for these two instabilities, as well as for stable modes, we show (1) how Milankovitch radiative changes or stochastic forcing influencing ice sheets can induce aperiodic (chaotic) transitions between the possible stable and unstable modes, and more significantly, (2) how progressive, long-term, tectonically-induced, changes in carbon dioxide, acting in concert with earth-orbital radiative variations in high Northern Hemisphere latitudes, can force systematic transitions between the modes. Such systematic changes can result in an ice mass chronology for the past 5 My that is qualitatively similar to the observed record of global ice mass. In essence, we have constructed a minimum dynamical model of the late Cenozoic climatic changes, containing what are believed to be the main physical factors determining these changes: ice mass, bedrock depression, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, deep ocean thermohaline state, Milankovitch radiation forcing, and slow tectonically-induced carbon dioxide forcing. This model forms the basis for a coherent theory for the complex climatic events of this long period.     

Orbital forcing and role of the latitudinal insolation/temperature gradient

Orbital forcing of the climate system is clearly shown in the Earths record of glacial–interglacial cycles, but the mechanism underlying this forcing is poorly understood. Traditional Milankovitch theory suggests that these cycles are driven by changes in high latitude summer insolation, yet this forcing is dominated by precession, and cannot account for the importance of obliquity in the Ice Age record. Here, we investigate an alternative forcing based on the latitudinal insolation gradient (LIG), which is dominated by both obliquity (in summer) and precession (in winter). The insolation gradient acts on the climate system through differential solar heating, which creates the Earths latitudinal temperature gradient (LTG) that drives the atmospheric and ocean circulation. A new pollen-based reconstruction of the LTG during the Holocene is used to demonstrate that the LTG may be much more sensitive to changes in the LIG than previously thought. From this, it is shown how LIG forcing of the LTG may help explain the propagation of orbital signatures throughout the climate system, including the Monsoon, Arctic Oscillation and ocean circulation. These relationships are validated over the last (Eemian) Interglacial, which occurred under a different orbital configuration to the Holocene. We conclude that LIG forcing of the LTG explains many criticisms of classic Milankovitch theory, while being poorly represented in climate models.     

Adapting stochastic weather generation algorithms for climate change studies

While large-scale climate models (GCMs) are in principle the most appropriate tools for predicting climate changes, at present little confidence can be placed in the details of their projections. Use of tools such as crop simulation models for investigation of potential impacts of climatic change requires daily data pertaining to small spatial scales, not the monthly-averaged and large-scale information typically available from the GCMs. A method is presented to adapt stochastic weather generation models, describing daily weather variations in the present-day climate at particular locations, to generate synthetic daily time series consistent with assumed future climates. These assumed climates are specified in terms of the commonly available monthly means and variances of temperature and precipitation, including time-dependent (so-called transient) climate changes. Unlike the usual practice of applying assumed changes in mean values to historically observed data, simulation of meteorological time series also exhibiting changes in variability is possible. Considerable freedom in climate change scenario construction is allowed. The results are suitable for investigating agricultural and other impacts of a variety of hypothetical climate changes specified in terms of monthly-averaged statistics.     

Is the astronomical forcing a reliable and unique pacemaker for climate? A conceptual model study

There is evidence that ice age cycles are paced by astronomical forcing, suggesting some kind of synchronisation phenomenon. Here, we identify the type of such synchronisation and explore systematically its uniqueness and robustness using a simple paleoclimate model akin to the van der Pol relaxation oscillator and dynamical system theory. As the insolation is quite a complex quasiperiodic signal involving different frequencies, the traditional concepts used to define synchronisation to periodic forcing are no longer applicable. Instead, we explore a different concept of generalised synchronisation in terms of (coexisting) synchronised solutions for the forced system, their basins of attraction and instabilities. We propose a clustering technique to compute the number of synchronised solutions, each of which corresponds to a different paleoclimate history. In this way, we uncover multistable synchronisation (reminiscent of phase- or frequency-locking to individual periodic components of astronomical forcing) at low forcing strength, and monostable or unique synchronisation at stronger forcing. In the multistable regime, different initial conditions may lead to different paleoclimate histories. To study their robustness, we analyse Lyapunov exponents that quantify the rate of convergence towards each synchronised solution (local stability), and basins of attraction that indicate critical levels of external perturbations (global stability). We find that even though synchronised solutions are stable on a long term, there exist short episodes of desynchronisation where nearby climate trajectories diverge temporarily (for about 50 kyr). As the attracting trajectory can sometimes lie close to the boundary of its basin of attraction, a small perturbation could quite easily make climate to jump between different histories, reducing the predictability. Our study brings new insight into paleoclimate dynamics and reveals a possibility for the climate system to wander throughout different climatic histories related to preferential synchronisation regimes on obliquity, precession or combinations of both, all over the history of the Pleistocene.     

Multi-year fluctuations of temperature and precipitation: The gray area of climate change

The issue of whether the secular climate (twentieth century) is stationary or changing to some new semi-permanent state is clouded by the presence of so-called climate fluctuations. The twentieth century climate record of the United States reveals a substantial number of decadal fluctuations which occur in all seasons for both temperature and precipitation. Recent examples of such behavior include changes in winter and summer temperature variability and increases in transition season precipitation. Statistical evidence suggests that a substantial portion of these fluctuations, even those which are remarkably unusual, are merely manifestations of a stochastic process which possesses weak year-to-year persistence as viewed from an a posteriori perspective. The implications of this result are particularly important with respect to the formulation of physical causes of the fluctuations. The results emphasize the desirability of well-founded clearly-stated a priori theories of climate change as well as the limited usefulness of widely used climate normals.     

The importance of precessional signals in the tropical climate

Past research on the climate response to orbital forcing has emphasized the glacial-interglacial variations in global ice volume, global-mean temperature, and the global hydrologic cycle. This emphasis may be inappropriate in the tropics, where the response to precessional forcing is likely to be somewhat independent of the glacial-interglacial variations, particularly in variables relating to the hydrologic cycle. To illustrate this point, we use an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a slab ocean model, performing experiments that quantify the tropical climates response to (1) opposite phases of precessional forcing, and (2) Last Glacial Maximum boundary conditions. While the glacially-forced tropical temperature changes are typically more than an order of magnitude larger than those arising from precessional forcing, the hydrologic signals stemming from the two forcings are comparable in magnitude. The mechanisms behind these signals are investigated and shown to be quite distinct for the precessional and glacial forcing. Because of strong dynamical linkages in the tropics, the model results illustrate the impossibility of predicting the local hydrologic response to external forcing without understanding the response at much larger spatial scales. Examples from the paleoclimate record are presented as additional evidence for the importance of precessional signals in past variations of the tropical climate.     

A first approach to assessing future climate states in the UK over very long timescales: Input to studies of the integrity of radioactive waste repositories

Projected timescales for the transport of radionuclides from an undisturbed undergound nuclear waste repository to the surface are in the range of tens of thousands to millions of years. Over these timescales major natural and potentially major anthropogenic changes in climate can be expected. As part of the UK disposal safety assessment programme, time-dependent models of the repository environment are being developed. The Climatic Research Unit has undertaken a study of relevant climatic change and climatic effects. This has required assessment of the probable range, succession and duration of major climate states likely to be experienced in the UK over very long timescales, up to 10⁶ yr. Two methodologies have been employed. The first uses the Milankovitch theory, which is considered to be the major cause of the Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycles. The second involves empirical analysis of the long-term reconstructed climate record: no assumptions about the specific causes or mechanisms are made. A period of sub-tropical climate is included in the sequence to represent a period of anthropogenically-induced greenhouse warming. The climate sequence established using these methods will form the basis for studying related processes, such as erosion and groundwater movement and transfer by vegetation, and their implications for radioactive waste disposal. This has involved the construction of instrumental climate analogues.     

随机强迫对集合预报效果的影响研究

以Lorenz96模式为动力框架,建立了考虑模式随机强迫不确定性的集合预报系统,并选择模式气候态和集合平均预报效果为研究对象,研究随机强迫对集合预报效果的影响.结果表明,在数值模式积分过程中引入恰当的随机强迫构成的新计算范式,较非随机强迫更接近真值的气候平均与气候标准差,对刻画数值模式的气候态也有正效果;且随机强迫的正效果主要体现在长时效阶段.集合平均预报方面,绝大部分白噪声随机强迫对应的集合预报效果优于非随机强迫集合预报,集合预报效果也随白噪声强迫增大非单调变化,并且非线性系统不同,相同比率的白噪声随机强迫产生的效果也不同.同时,绝大部分红噪声随机强迫对应的集合预报效果也优于非随机强迫集合预报,但仅部分φ(表示所引入外强迫的随机性部分和确定性部分相互耦合的一个度量)值对应的红噪声强迫集合预报优于白噪声随机强迫集合预报;而且红噪声随机强迫集合预报改善效果随系数的正负分布非对称且非单调变化.此外,相关系数φ的选择也依赖于模型.     

Analysis of the probability distribution of the late Pleistocene climatic record implications for model validation

Some statistical properties of the late Pleistocene climatic changes, as inferred from the analysis of the Probability Density Function (PDF) of the deep-sea ¹⁸O record, are discussed. Estimates of the probability distribution of the SPECMAP record seem to reveal a bimodal character over the last 600 000 years BP, with a transition to a unimodal distribution for a longer time interval. Based on knowledge of the accuracy of the measurements, we try to remove the arbitrariness of such estimates, and by employing a number of different estimators we show that the major features observed are not affected by the particular method used. Possible dynamic interpretations are discussed. The abruptness of many transitions between the two modes and their symmetric occurrence seem to be significant features of the past climatic changes, which should be reproduced by climate models. The distribution of this indicator is then used to compare the performances of two climate models. Various statistical tests are employed and it is shown that, for a proper determination of the physical significance of such tests, information about the accuracy and reliability of the data must be included. For example, the comparison of two generalized isotopic curves, independently developed, shows a correlation coefficient of the order of 70%; therefore any account of the variance of any particular target curve beyond this level cannot be considered significant. These types of analyses suggest how the standard data evaluation and model validation techniques can be improved when discussing the essential features of observed and simulated dynamical systems.     

Late Cenozoic lacustrine and climatic environments at Tule Lake,northern Great Basin,USA

Cores of lake sediment to a depth of 334 m in the town of Tulelake, Siskiyou County, northern California, document the late Cenozoic paleolimnologic and paleoclimatic history of the northwestern edge of the Great Basin. The cores have been dated by radiometric, tephrochronologic and paleomagnetic analyses. Lacustrine diatoms are abundant throughout the record and document a nearly continuous paleolimnologic history of the Tule Lake basin for the last 3 Myr. During most of this time, this basin (Tule Lake) was a relatively deep, extensive lake. Except for a drier (and cooler?) interval recorded by Fragilaria species about 2.4 Ma, the Pliocene is characterized by a dominance of planktonic Aulacoseira solida implying a warm monomictic lake under a climatic regime of low seasonality. Much of the Pleistocene is dominated by Stephanodiscus and Fragilaria species suggesting a cooler, often drier, and highly variable climate. Benthic diatoms typical of alkaline-enriched saline waters commonly appear after 1.0 Ma, and tephrochronology indicates slow deposition and possible hiatuses between about 0.6 and 0.2 Ma. The chronology of even-numbered oxygen isotope stages approximately matches fluctuations in the abundance of Fragilaria since 800 ka indicating that glacial periods were expressed as drier environments at Tule Lake. Glacial and interglacial environments since 150 ka were distinct from, and more variable than, those occurring earlier. The last full glacial period was very dry, but shortly thereafter Tule Lake became a deep, cool lacustrine system indicating a substantial increase in precipitation. Aulacoseira ambigua characterized the latest glacial and Holocene record of Tule Lake. Its distribution indicates that warmer and wetter climates began about 15 ka in this part of the Great Basin. Diatom concentration fluctuates at 41 000 year intervals between 3.0 and 2.5 Ma and at approximately 100 000 year intervals after 1.0 Ma. In the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene, Aulacoseira solida percentages wax and wane in an approximately 400 000 year cycle. The possible response of Tule Lake diatom communities to orbitally-induced insolation cycles underscores the importance of this record for the study of late Cenozoic paleoclimate change.     

Late Pliocene to Pleistocene sensitivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet in response to external forcing and internal feedbacks

The timing and nature of ice sheet variations on Greenland over the last ～5 million years remain largely uncertain. Here, we use a coupled climate-vegetation-ice sheet model to determine the climatic sensitivity of Greenland to combined sets of external forcings and internal feedbacks operating on glacial-interglacial timescales. In particular, we assess the role of atmospheric pCO₂, orbital forcing, and vegetation dynamics in modifying thresholds for the onset of glaciation in late Pliocene and Pleistocene. The response of circum-Arctic vegetation to declining levels of pCO₂ (from 400 to 200 ppmv) and decreasing summer insolation includes a shift from boreal forest to tundra biomes, with implications for the surface energy balance. The expansion of tundra amplifies summer surface cooling and heat loss from the ground, leading to an expanded summer snow cover over Greenland. Atmospheric and land surface fields respond to forcing most prominently in late spring-summer and are more sensitive at lower Pleistocene-like levels of pCO₂. We find cold boreal summer orbits produce favorable conditions for ice sheet growth, however simulated ice sheet extents are highly dependent on both background pCO₂ levels and land-surface characteristics. As a result, late Pliocene ice sheet configurations on Greenland differ considerably from late Pleistocene, with smaller ice caps on high elevations of southern and eastern Greenland, even when orbital forcing is favorable for ice sheet growth.     

Three million years of monsoon variability over the northern Sahara

We present a 3 million year record of aeolian dust supply into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, based on hematite contents derived from magnetic properties of sediments from Ocean Drilling Program Site 967. Our record has an average temporal resolution of 400 years. Geochemical data validate this record of hematite content as a proxy for the supply of aeolian dust from the Sahara. We deduce that the aeolian hematite in eastern Mediterranean sediments derives from the eastern Algerian, Libyan, and western Egyptian lowlands located north of the central Saharan watershed (21°N). In corroboration of earlier work, we relate dust flux minima to penetration of the African summer monsoon front to the north of the central Saharan watershed. This would have enhanced soil humidity and vegetation cover in the source regions, in agreement with results from green Sahara climate models. Our results indicate that this northward monsoon penetration recurred during insolation maxima throughout the last 3 million years. As would be expected, this orbital precession-scale mechanism is modulated on both short (100-kyr) and long (400-kyr) eccentricity time scales. We also observe a strong expression of the 41-kyr (obliquity) cycle, which we discuss in terms of high- and low-latitude mechanisms that involve Southern Hemisphere meridional temperature contrasts and shifts in the latitudes of the tropics, respectively. We also observe a marked increase in sub-Milankovitch variability around the mid-Pleistocene transition (0.95 Ma), which suggests a link between millennial-scale climate variability, including monsoon dynamics, and the size of northern hemisphere ice sheets.     

Mechanisms of shrubland expansion: land use,climate or CO2?

Encroachment of trees and shrubs into grasslands and the thicketization of savannas has occurred worldwide over the past century. These changes in vegetation structure are potentially relevant to climatic change as they may be indicative of historical shifts in climate and as they may influence biophysical aspects of land surface-atmosphere interactions and alter carbon and nitrogen cycles. Traditional explanations offered to account for the historic displacement of grasses by woody plants in many arid and semi-arid ecosystems have centered around changes in climatic, livestock grazing and fire regimes. More recently, it has been suggested that the increase in atmospheric CO₂ since the industrial revolution has been the driving force. In this paper we evaluate the CO₂ enrichment hypotheses and argue that historic, positive correlations between woody plant expansion and atmospheric CO₂ are not cause and effect.Please direct all correspondence to the senior author.     

Climatic interpretation of the recently extended Vostok ice records

A new ice core drilled at the Russian station of Vostok in Antarctica reached 2755 m depth in September 1993. At this depth, the glaciological time scale provides an age of 260 ky BP (±25). We refine this estimate using records of dust and deuterium in the ice and of ¹⁸O of O₂ in the entrapped air. ¹⁸O of O₂ is highly correlated with insolation over the last two climatic cycles if one assumes that the EGT chronology overestimates the increase of age with depth by 12% for ages older than 112 ky BP. This modified age-depth scale gives an age of 244 ky BP at 2755 m depth and agrees well with the age-depth scale of Walbroeck et al. (in press) derived by orbital tuning of the Vostok D record. We discuss the temperature interpretation of this latter record accounting for the influence of the origin of the ice and using information derived from deuterium-excess data. We conclude that the warmest period of stage 7 was likely as warm as today in Antarctica. A remarkable feature of the Vostok record is the high level of similarity of proxy temperature records for the last two climatic cycles (stages 6 and 7 versus stages 1–5). This similarity has no equivalent in other paleorecords.