Transient (monsoonal) climate behavior in CLIMBER

Speaker details
Erik Tuenter (tuenter@knmi.nl) KNMI/Utrecht
Event contact
Eleonora Gandolfi (E.Gandolfi@Southampton.ac.uk) Southampton

Event resources

- Downoad presentation

Abstract

The (separate) role of orbital induced insolation changes (i.e., Milankovitch cycles), ice-sheets and greenhouse gas concentrations in the glacial-interglacial cycles are not very well known. Furthermore, there is much debate on the phase relations between these forcings and the climate response. Transient climate model simulations necessary to study the evolutionary response of the climate system to orbital forcing are very rarely due to the very long simulation time.

In this talk I will discuss the results of very long transient simulations (650 kyr BP until present) performed by a coupled climate model (CLIMBER-2) that unravel the separate and combined influences of orbital forcing, ice sheets and greenhouse gas concentrations on climate. Focus will be on the glacial-interglacial variations in temperature and monsoonal precipitation and their possible phase differences compared to obliquity and precession.