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© Author(s) 2020. We gratefully acknowledge the IlModels (CGL2014-59644-R) and GreatModelS (RTI2018-102305-B-C21) projects. We also thank the CESM1(CAM5) Last Millennium Ensemble Community Project and supercomputing resources provided by the NSF, CISL and Yellowstone. This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (grant no. BES-2015-075019)., Borehole-based reconstruction is a wellestablished technique to recover information of the past climate variability based on two main hypotheses: (1) past ground surface temperature (GST) histories can be recovered from borehole temperature profiles (BTPs); (2) the past GST evolution is coupled to surface air temperature (SAT) changes, and thus, past SAT changes can be recovered from BTPs. Compared to some of the last millennium (LM) proxy-based reconstructions, previous studies based on the borehole technique indicate a larger temperature increase during the last few centuries. The nature of these differences has fostered the assessment of this reconstruction technique in search of potential causes of bias. Here, we expand previous works to explore potential methodological and physical biases using pseudo-proxy experiments with the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble (CESM-LME). A heat-conduction forward model driven by simulated surface temperature is used to generate synthetic BTPs that are then inverted using singular value decomposition. This procedure is applied to the set of simulations that incorporates all of the LM external forcing factors as well as those that consider the concentration of the green house gases (GHGs) and the land use land cover (LULC) changes forcings separately. The results indicate that methodological issues may impact the representation of the simulated GST at different spatial scales, with the temporal logging of the BTPs as the main sampling issue that may lead to an underestimation of the simulated GST 20th-century trends. Our analysis also shows that in the surrogate reality of the CESM-LME the GST does not fully capture the SAT warming during the industrial period, and thus, there may be a further underestimation of the past SAT changes due to physical processes. Globally, this effect is mainly influenced by the GHG forcing, whereas regionally, LULC changes and other forcings factors also contribute. These findi, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

Radiative forcing from volcanic aerosol impacts surface temperatures; however, the background climate state also affects the response. A key question thus concerns whether constraining forcing estimates is more important than constraining initial conditions for accurate simulation and attribution of posteruption climate anomalies. Here we test whether different realistic volcanic forcing magnitudes for the 1815 Tambora eruption yield distinguishable ensemble surface temperature responses. We perform a cluster analysis on a superensemble of climate simulations including three 30-member ensembles using the same set of initial conditions but different volcanic forcings based on uncertainty estimates. Results clarify how forcing uncertainties can overwhelm initial-condition spread in boreal summer due to strong direct radiative impact, while the effect of initial conditions predominate in winter, when dynamics contribute to large ensemble spread. In our setup, current uncertainties affecting reconstruction-simulation comparisons prevent conclusions about the magnitude of the Tambora eruption and its relation to the “year without summer.”

The climate of the last two millennia was characterised by decadal to multi‐centennial variations which were recorded in terrestrial records and had important societal impacts. The cause of these climatic events is still under debate but changes in the North Atlantic circulation have often been proposed to play an important role. In this review we compile available high‐resolution paleoceanographic datasets from the northern North Atlantic and Nordic Seas. The records are grouped into regions related to modern ocean conditions and their variability is discussed. We additionally discuss our current knowledge from modelling studies, with a specific focus on the dynamical changes that are not well inferred from the proxy records. An illustration is provided through the analysis of two climate model ensembles and an individual simulation of the last millennium. This review thereby provides an up‐to‐date paleo‐perspective on the North Atlantic multidecadal to multi‐centennial ocean variability across the last two millennia.

This paper is the first of a series of four GMD papers on the PMIP4-CMIP6 experiments. Part 2 (Otto-Bliesner et al., 2017) gives details about the two PMIP4-CMIP6 interglacial experiments, Part 3 (Jungclaus et al., 2017) about the last millennium experiment, and Part 4 (Kageyama et al., 2017) about the Last Glacial Maximum experiment. The mid-Pliocene Warm Period experiment is part of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) – Phase 2, detailed in Haywood et al. (2016). The goal of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) is to understand the response of the climate system to different climate forcings for documented climatic states very different from the present and historical climates. Through comparison with observations of the environmental impact of these climate changes, or with climate reconstructions based on physical, chemical, or biological records, PMIP also addresses the issue of how well state-of-the-art numerical models simulate climate change. Climate models are usually developed using the present and historical climates as references, but climate projections show that future climates will lie well outside these conditions. Palaeoclimates very different from these reference states therefore provide stringent tests for state-of-the-art models and a way to assess whether their sensitivity to forcings is compatible with palaeoclimatic evidence. Simulations of five different periods have been designed to address the objectives of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6): the millennium prior to the industrial epoch (CMIP6 name: past1000); the mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago (midHolocene); the Last Glacial Maximum, 21 000 years ago (lgm); the Last Interglacial, 127 000 years ago (lig127k); and the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, 3.2 million years ago (midPliocene-eoi400). These climatic periods are well documented by palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records, with climate and environmental changes relev

This paper is the first of a series of four GMD papers on the PMIP4-CMIP6 experiments. Part 2 (Otto-Bliesner et al., 2017) gives details about the two PMIP4-CMIP6 interglacial experiments, Part 3 (Jungclaus et al., 2017) about the last millennium experiment, and Part 4 (Kageyama et al., 2017) about the Last Glacial Maximum experiment. The mid-Pliocene Warm Period experiment is part of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) - Phase 2, detailed in Haywood et al. (2016). The goal of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) is to understand the response of the climate system to different climate forcings for documented climatic states very different from the present and historical climates. Through comparison with observations of the environmental impact of these climate changes, or with climate reconstructions based on physical, chemical, or biological records, PMIP also addresses the issue of how well state-of-the-art numerical models simulate climate change. Climate models are usually developed using the present and historical climates as references, but climate projections show that future climates will lie well outside these conditions. Palaeoclimates very different from these reference states therefore provide stringent tests for state-of-the-art models and a way to assess whether their sensitivity to forcings is compatible with palaeoclimatic evidence. Simulations of five different periods have been designed to address the objectives of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6): the millennium prior to the industrial epoch (CMIP6 name: past1000); the mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago (midHolocene); the Last Glacial Maximum, 21ĝ€000 years ago (lgm); the Last Interglacial, 127ĝ€000 years ago (lig127k); and the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, 3.2 million years ago (midPliocene-eoi400). These climatic periods are well documented by palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records

The pre-industrial millennium is among the periods selected by the Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project (PMIP) for experiments contributing to the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) and the fourth phase of the PMIP (PMIP4). The past1000 transient simulations serve to investigate the response to (mainly) natural forcing under background conditions not too different from today, and to discriminate between forced and internally generated variability on interannual to centennial timescales. This paper describes the motivation and the experimental set-ups for the PMIP4-CMIP6 past1000 simulations, and discusses the forcing agents orbital, solar, volcanic, and land use/land cover changes, and variations in greenhouse gas concentrations. The past1000 simulations covering the pre-industrial millennium from 850 Common Era (CE) to 1849 CE have to be complemented by historical simulations (1850 to 2014 CE) following the CMIP6 protocol. The external forcings for the past1000 experiments have been adapted to provide a seamless transition across these time periods. Protocols for the past1000 simulations have been divided into three tiers. A default forcing data set has been defined for the Tier 1 (the CMIP6 past1000) experiment. However, the PMIP community has maintained the flexibility to conduct coordinated sensitivity experiments to explore uncertainty in forcing reconstructions as well as parameter uncertainty in dedicated Tier 2 simulations. Additional experiments (Tier 3) are defined to foster collaborative model experiments focusing on the early instrumental period and to extend the temporal range and the scope of the simulations. This paper outlines current and future research foci and common analyses for collaborative work between the PMIP and the observational communities (reconstructions, instrumental data).

The pre-industrial millennium is among the periods selected by the Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project (PMIP) for experiments contributing to the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) and the fourth phase of the PMIP (PMIP4). The past1000 transient simulations serve to investigate the response to (mainly) natural forcing under background conditions not too different from today, and to discriminate between forced and internally generated variability on interannual to centennial timescales. This paper describes the motivation and the experimental set-ups for the PMIP4-CMIP6 past1000 simulations, and discusses the forcing agents orbital, solar, volcanic, and land use/land cover changes, and variations in greenhouse gas concentrations. The past1000 simulations covering the pre-industrial millennium from 850 Common Era (CE) to 1849 CE have to be complemented by historical simulations (1850 to 2014 CE) following the CMIP6 protocol. The external forcings for the past1000 experiments have been adapted to provide a seamless transition across these time periods. Protocols for the past1000 simulations have been divided into three tiers. A default forcing data set has been defined for the Tier 1 (the CMIP6 past1000) experiment. However, the PMIP community has maintained the flexibility to conduct coordinated sensitivity experiments to explore uncertainty in forcing reconstructions as well as parameter uncertainty in dedicated Tier 2 simulations. Additional experiments (Tier 3) are defined to foster collaborative model experiments focusing on the early instrumental period and to extend the temporal range and the scope of the simulations. This paper outlines current and future research foci and common analyses for collaborative work between the PMIP and the observational communities (reconstructions, instrumental data)

Climate reconstructions reveal a strong winter amplification of the cooling over central and northern continental Europe during the Little Ice Age period (LIA, here defined as c. 16th-18th centuries) via persistent, blocked atmospheric conditions. Although various potential drivers have been suggested to explain the LIA cooling, no coherent mechanism has yet been proposed for this seasonal contrast. Here we demonstrate that such exceptional wintertime conditions arose from sea ice expansion and reduced ocean heat losses in the Nordic and Barents seas, driven by a multicentennial reduction in the northward heat transport by the subpolar gyre (SPG). However, these anomalous oceanic conditions were largely decoupled from the European atmospheric variability in summer. Our novel dynamical explanation is derived from analysis of an ensemble of last millennium climate simulations, and is supported by reconstructions of European temperatures and atmospheric circulation variability and North Atlantic/Arctic paleoceanographic conditions. We conclude that SPG-related internal climate feedbacks were responsible for the winter amplification of the European LIA cooling. Thus, characterization of SPG dynamics is essential for understanding multicentennial variations of the seasonal cycle in the European/North Atlantic sector.

The Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP) is an endorsed project in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). OMIP addresses CMIP6 science questions, investigating the origins and consequences of systematic model biases. It does so by providing a framework for evaluating (including assessment of systematic biases), understanding, and improving ocean, sea-ice, tracer, and biogeochemical components of climate and earth system models contributing to CMIP6. Among the WCRP Grand Challenges in climate science (GCs), OMIP primarily contributes to the regional sea level change and near-term (climate/decadal) prediction GCs. OMIP provides (a) an experimental protocol for global ocean/sea-ice models run with a prescribed atmospheric forcing; and (b) a protocol for ocean diagnostics to be saved as part of CMIP6. We focus here on the physical component of OMIP, with a companion paper (Orr et al., 2016) detailing methods for the inert chemistry and interactive biogeochemistry. The physical portion of the OMIP experimental protocol follows the interannual Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments (CORE-II). Since 2009, CORE-I (Normal Year Forcing) and CORE-II (Interannual Forcing) have become the standard methods to evaluate global ocean/sea-ice simulations and to examine mechanisms for forced ocean climate variability. The OMIP diagnostic protocol is relevant for any ocean model component of CMIP6, including the DECK (Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima experiments), historical simulations, FAFMIP (Flux Anomaly Forced MIP), C4MIP (Coupled Carbon Cycle Climate MIP), DAMIP (Detection and Attribution MIP), DCPP (Decadal Climate Prediction Project), ScenarioMIP, HighResMIP (High Resolution MIP), as well as the ocean/sea-ice OMIP simulations.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is part of a global redistribution system in the ocean that carries vast amounts of mass, heat, and freshwater. Within the AMOC, water mass transformations in the Nordic Seas (NS) and the overflows across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge (GSR) contribute significantly to the overturning mass transport. The deep NS are separated by the GSR from direct exchange with the subpolar North Atlantic. Two deeper passages, Denmark Strait (DS, sill depth 630 m) and Faroe Bank Channel (FBC, sill depth 840 m), constrain the deep outflow. The outflow transports are assumed to be governed by hydraulic control (Whitehead 1989, 1998). According to the circulation scheme by Dickson and Brown (1994), there is an overflow of 2.9 Sv (1 Sv = 1 Sverdrup = 106 m3 s–1) through DS, 1.7 Sv through FBC and another 1 Sv from flow across the Iceland%Faroe Ridge (IFR). To the south of the GSR, the overflows sink to depth and then spread along the topography, eventually merging to form a deep boundary current in the western Irminger Sea. During the descent, the dense bottom water flow doubles its volume by entrainment of ambient waters (e.g. Price and Baringer 1994) so that there is a deep water transport of 13.3 Sv once the boundary current reaches Cape Farvel (Dickson and Brown 1994). Thus the overflows and the overflow-related part of the AMOC account for more than 70% of the maximum total overturning, which is estimated from observations to be about 18 Sv (e.g. Macdonald 1998)

A densely spaced hydrographic survey of the northern Irminger Basin together with satellite-tracked near-surface drifters confirm the intense mesoscale variability within and above the Denmark Strait overflow. In particular, the drifters show distinct cyclonic vortices over the downslope edge of the outflow plume. Growing perturbations such as these can be attributed to the baroclinic instability of a density current. A primitive equation model with periodic boundaries is used to simulate the destabilization of an idealized dense filament on a continental slope that resembles the northeastern Irminger Basin. Unstable waves evolve rapidly if the initial temperature profile is perturbed with a sinusoidal anomaly that exceeds a certain cutoff wavelength. As the waves grow to large amplitudes isolated eddies of both signs develop. Anticyclones form initially within the dense filament and are rich in overflow water. In contrast, cyclones form initially with their center in the ambient water but wrap outflow water around their center, thus containing a mixture of both water types. The nonlinear advection of waters that were originally located within the front between both water masses contributes most significantly to the stronger intensification of the cyclones in comparison with anticyclones. The frontal waters carry positive relative vorticity into the center of the cyclone. The process bears therefore some resemblance to atmospheric frontal cyclogenesis. After saturation there is a bottom jet of overflow water that is confined by counterrotating eddies: anticyclones upslope and cyclones downslope of the overflow core. The parameter dependence of the maximum growth rate is studied, and the implications of eddy-induced mixing for the water mass modification is discussed.