The application of a Regional Climate Model for paleoclimate studies: the climate of Europe frommidto-late Holocene

Abstract:

With the aim of identifying the main climatic changes and their possible impact on the life and on the
development of different civilizations inhabiting Europe during mid-to-late Holocene, the results of a
transient continuous simulation with a coupled AOGCM are used to perform a set of higher resoluted
simulations for different time-slices from 6000 to 200 years before present.
Analyses are conducted in order to determine the main modes of the zonal wind variability at 500hPa
and to investigate their influence on the distribution of 2-meter temperatures and precipitations for the
different periods.
The results show that while in summer the trends are directly related to a decrease in insulation, in
winter internal variability plays a major role and shifts or changes in the westerly winds have had a
significant impact, causing warmer and wetter conditions over northern Europe and Scandinavia in
some time slices, and a more temperate and humid climate over continental Europe in the others.
The outcomes of the regional climate simulations are tested against pollen reconstructions and
eventually compared with the results of a simulation performed with a Global Circulation Model in order
to estimate the added value of the use of a Regional Climate Model for paleoclimate studies.