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Resolving the Differences in the Simulated and Reconstructed Temperature Response to Volcanism
Author(s) -
Zhu Feng,
EmileGeay Julien,
Hakim Gregory J.,
King Jonathan,
Anchukaitis Kevin J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl086908
Subject(s) - paleoclimatology , volcanism , climatology , radiative forcing , volcano , dendroclimatology , forcing (mathematics) , environmental science , climate model , geology , proxy (statistics) , climate change , data assimilation , perturbation (astronomy) , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , geography , physics , tectonics , seismology , paleontology , oceanography , machine learning , quantum mechanics , computer science
Explosive volcanism imposes impulse‐like radiative forcing on the climate system, providing a natural experiment to study the climate response to perturbation. Previous studies have identified disagreements between paleoclimate reconstructions and climate model simulations with respect to the magnitude and recovery from volcanic cooling, questioning the fidelity of climate model simulations, reconstructions, or both. Using the paleoenvironmental data assimilation framework of the Last Millennium Reanalysis, this study investigates the causes of the disagreements, using both real and simulated data. We demonstrate that discrepancies since 1600 CE can be largely resolved by assimilating tree‐ring density records only, targeting growing season temperature instead of annual temperature, and performing the comparison at proxy locales. Simulations of eruptions earlier in the last millennium may also reflect uncertainties in forcing and modeled aerosol microphysics.