Authors: M Claussen A Ganopolski V Brovkin FW Gerstengarbe P Werner
Publish Date: 2003/08/26
Volume: 21, Issue: 5-6, Pages: 361-370
Abstract
By using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity we have studied the globalscale response of the glacial climate system during marine isotope stage MIS 3 to perturbations at high northern latitudes and the tropics These perturbations include changes in inlandice volume over North America in freshwater flux into the northern North Atlantic and in surface temperatures of the tropical Pacific The global pattern of temperature series resulting from an experiment in which perturbations of inland ice and freshwater budget are imposed at high northern latitudes only agree with paleoclimatic reconstructions In particular a positive correlation of temperature variations near Greenland and variations in all regions of the Northern Hemisphere and some parts of the southern tropics is found Over the southern oceans a weak negative correlation appears which is strongest at a time lag of approximately 500 years Further experimentation with prescribed temperature anomalies applied to the tropical Pacific suggests that perturbation of tropical seasurface temperatures and hence the tropical water cycle is unlikely to have triggered Dansgaard/Oeschger D/O events However together with random freshwater anomalies prescribed at high northern latitudes tropical perturbations would be able to synchronize the occurrence of D/O events via the mechanism of stochastic resonanceWe would like to thank Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research for discussion and Anja Hünerbein and Alexandra Jahn of the Free University Berlin for technical assistance The constructive suggestions by two reviewers are very much appreciated This study was partly supported by the German Science Foundation DFG grant CL 178/1 and CL178/2
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