Description: Supervolcano eruptions have occurred throughout Earth’s history and have major environmental impacts. These impacts are mostly associated with the attenuation of visible sunlight by stratospheric sulfate aerosols, which causes cooling and deceleration of the water cycle. Supereruptions have been assumed to cause so-called volcanic winters that act as primary evolutionary factors through ecosystem disruption and famine, however, winter conditions alone may not be sufficient to cause such disruption. Here we use Earth system model simulations to show that stratospheric sulfur emissions from the Toba supereruption 74,000 years ago caused severe stratospheric ozone loss through a radiation attenuation mechanism that only moderately depends on the emission magnitude. The Toba plume strongly inhibited oxygen photolysis, suppressing ozone formation in the tropics, where exceptionally depleted ozone conditions persisted for over a year. This effect, when combined with volcanic winter in the extra-tropics, can account for the impacts of supereruptions on ecosystems and humanity.

Description: Stratospheric sulfur emissions from the Toba supereruption about 74,000 years ago suppressed ozone formation which caused severe tropical ozone layer depletion and enhanced solar ultraviolet radiation stress, according to Earth system model simulations.

Description: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004052

Description: http://hdl.handle.net/10754/667404

Description: https://github.com/SeregaOsipov/NASA-GISS-ModelE/releases/tag/toba_o3

Description: https://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/

Description: Laboratory O2 clumped-isotope data (as D36 values measured at Rice University) for air occluded in ice core WDC06A spanning gas ages of 18000-21000 ky BP for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Modeled atmospheric history for the LGM via outputs of the GISS-E2.1 driven and Data Assimilation (DAv2.0) driven chemical transport model incorporated into a 2-box model of the atmosphere.

Description: Laboratory O2 clumped-isotope data (as D36 values measured at Rice University) for air occluded in ice core GISP2-D spanning gas ages of 18000-21000 ky BP for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Modeled atmospheric history for the LGM via outputs of the GISS-E2.1 driven and Data Assimilation (DAv2.0) driven chemical transport model incorporated into a 2-box model of the atmosphere.

Description: The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼ 21 000 years ago) has been a major focus for evaluating how well state-of-the-art climate models simulate climate changes as large as those expected in the future using paleoclimate reconstructions. A new generation of climate models has been used to generate LGM simulations as part of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) contribution to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Here, we provide a preliminary analysis and evaluation of the results of these LGM experiments (PMIP4, most of which are PMIP4-CMIP6) and compare them with the previous generation of simulations (PMIP3, most of which are PMIP3-CMIP5). We show that the global averages of the PMIP4 simulations span a larger range in terms of mean annual surface air temperature and mean annual precipitation compared to the PMIP3-CMIP5 simulations, with some PMIP4 simulations reaching a globally colder and drier state. However, the multi-model global cooling average is similar for the PMIP4 and PMIP3 ensembles, while the multi-model PMIP4 mean annual precipitation average is drier than the PMIP3 one. There are important differences in both atmospheric and oceanic circulations between the two sets of experiments, with the northern and southern jet streams being more poleward and the changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation being less pronounced in the PMIP4-CMIP6 simulations than in the PMIP3-CMIP5 simulations. Changes in simulated precipitation patterns are influenced by both temperature and circulation changes. Differences in simulated climate between individual models remain large. Therefore, although there are differences in the average behaviour across the two ensembles, the new simulation results are not fundamentally different from the PMIP3-CMIP5 results. Evaluation of large-scale climate features, such as land–sea contrast and polar amplification, confirms that the models capture these well and within the uncertainty of the paleoclimate reconstructions. Nevertheless, regional climate changes are less well simulated: the models underestimate extratropical cooling, particularly in winter, and precipitation changes. These results point to the utility of using paleoclimate simulations to understand the mechanisms of climate change and evaluate model performance.

Description: The incorporation of water isotopologues into the hydrology of general circulation models (GCMs) facilitates the comparison between modeled and measured proxy data in paleoclimate archives. However, the variability and drivers of measured and modeled water isotopologues, as well as the diversity of their representation in different models, are not well constrained. Improving our understanding of this variability in past and present climates will help to better constrain future climate change projections and decrease their range of uncertainty. Speleothems are a precisely datable terrestrial paleoclimate archives and provide well-preserved (semi-)continuous multivariate isotope time series in the lower latitudes and mid-latitudes and are therefore well suited to assess climate and isotope variability on decadal and longer timescales. However, the relationships of speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopes to climate variables are influenced by site-specific parameters, and their comparison to GCMs is not always straightforward. Here we compare speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopic signatures from the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis database version 2 (SISALv2) to the output of five different water-isotope-enabled GCMs (ECHAM5-wiso, GISS-E2-R, iCESM, iHadCM3, and isoGSM) over the last millennium (850–1850 CE). We systematically evaluate differences and commonalities between the standardized model simulation outputs. The goal is to distinguish climatic drivers of variability for modeled isotopes and compare them to those of measured isotopes. We find strong regional differences in the oxygen isotope signatures between models that can partly be attributed to differences in modeled surface temperature. At low latitudes, precipitation amount is the dominant driver for stable water isotope variability; however, at cave locations the agreement between modeled temperature variability is higher than for precipitation variability. While modeled isotopic signatures at cave locations exhibited extreme events coinciding with changes in volcanic and solar forcing, such fingerprints are not apparent in the speleothem isotopes. This may be attributed to the lower temporal resolution of speleothem records compared to the events that are to be detected. Using spectral analysis, we can show that all models underestimate decadal and longer variability compared to speleothems (albeit to varying extents). We found that no model excels in all analyzed comparisons, although some perform better than the others in either mean or variability. Therefore, we advise a multi-model approach whenever comparing proxy data to modeled data. Considering karst and cave internal processes, e.g., through isotope-enabled karst models, may alter the variability in speleothem isotopes and play an important role in determining the most appropriate model. By exploring new ways of analyzing the relationship between the oxygen and carbon isotopes, their variability, and co-variability across timescales, we provide methods that may serve as a baseline for future studies with different models using, e.g., different isotopes, different climate archives, or different time periods.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 117 (2012): D19108, doi:10.1029/2012JD018060.

Description: Existing paleoclimate data suggest a complex evolution of hydroclimate within the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) during the Holocene epoch. Here we introduce a new leaf wax isotope record from Sulawesi, Indonesia and compare proxy water isotope data with ocean-atmosphere general circulation model (OAGCM) simulations to identify mechanisms influencing Holocene IPWP hydroclimate. Modeling simulations suggest that orbital forcing causes heterogenous changes in precipitation across the IPWP on a seasonal basis that may account for the differences in time-evolution of the proxy data at respective sites. Both the proxies and simulations suggest that precipitation variability during the September–November (SON) season is important for hydroclimate in Borneo. The preëminence of the SON season suggests that a seasonally lagged relationship between the Indian

Description: J. Tierney acknowledges the NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship for support.

Description: 2013-04-04

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 34 (2007): L13701, doi:10.1029/2007GL030017.

Description: Paleoceanographic data from the low latitude Pacific Ocean provides evidence of changes in the freshwater budget and redistribution of freshwater within the basin during the Holocene. Reconstructed Holocene seawater δ 18O changes compare favorably to differences predicted between climate simulations for the middle Holocene (MH) and for the pre-Industrial late Holocene (LH). The model simulations demonstrate that changes in the tropical hydrologic cycle affect the relationship between δ 18Osw and surface salinity, and allow, for the first time, quantitative estimates of western Pacific salinity change during the Holocene. The simulations suggest that during the MH, the mean salinity of the Pacific was higher because less water vapor was transported from the Atlantic Ocean and more was transported to the Indian Ocean. The salinity of the western Pacific was enhanced further due both to the greater advection of salt to the region by ocean currents and to an increase in continental precipitation at the expense of maritime precipitation, the latter a consequence of the stronger Asian summer monsoon.

Description: This work was supported by NSF grants ATM-0501241, ATM-0501351, and WHOI’s Ocean and Climate Change Institute.

Description: The incorporation of water isotopologues into the hydrology of general circulation models (GCMs) facilitates the comparison between modeled and measured proxy data in paleoclimate archives. However, the variability and drivers of measured and modeled water isotopologues, as well as the diversity of their representation in different models, are not well constrained. Improving our understanding of this variability in past and present climates will help to better constrain future climate change projections and decrease their range of uncertainty. Speleothems are a precisely datable terrestrial paleoclimate archives and provide well-preserved (semi-)continuous multivariate isotope time series in the lower latitudes and mid-latitudes and are therefore well suited to assess climate and isotope variability on decadal and longer timescales. However, the relationships of speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopes to climate variables are influenced by site-specific parameters, and their comparison to GCMs is not always straightforward. Here we compare speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopic signatures from the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis database version 2 (SISALv2) to the output of five different water-isotope-enabled GCMs (ECHAM5-wiso, GISSE2-R, iCESM, iHadCM3, and isoGSM) over the last millennium (850–1850 CE). We systematically evaluate differences and commonalities between the standardized model simulation outputs. The goal is to distinguish climatic drivers of variability for modeled isotopes and compare them to those of measured isotopes. We find strong regional differences in the oxygen isotope signatures between models that can partly be attributed to differences in modeled surface temperature. At low latitudes, precipitation amount is the dominant driver for stable water isotope variability; however, at cave locations the agreement between modeled temperature variability is higher than for precipitation variability. While modeled isotopic signatures at cave locations exhibited extreme events coinciding with changes in volcanic and solar forcing, such fingerprints are not apparent in the speleothem isotopes. This may be attributed to the lower temporal resolution of speleothem records compared to the events that are to be detected. Using spectral analysis, we can show that all models underestimate decadal and longer variability compared to speleothems (albeit to varying extents). We found that no model excels in all analyzed comparisons, although some perform better than the others in either mean or variability. Therefore, we advise a multi-model approach whenever comparing proxy data to modeled data. Considering karst and cave internal processes, e.g., through isotope-enabled karst models, may alter the variability in speleothem isotopes and play an important role in determining the most appropriate model. By exploring new ways of analyzing the relationship between the oxygen and carbon isotopes, their variability, and co-variability across timescales, we provide methods that may serve as a baseline for future studies with different models using, e.g., different isotopes, different climate archives, or different time periods.