Nonstationary Australasian Teleconnections and Implications for Paleoclimate Reconstructions

Gallant, Ailie J. E.; Phipps, Steven J.; Karoly, David J.; Mullan, A. Brett; Lorrey, Andrew

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-12-00338.1

Cited by 77 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…We exclude lag relationships between each driver and rainfall, which are generally weaker . Relationships between precipitation and ocean-atmosphere processes can vary in strength over time (Gallant et al, 2013). We therefore use moving correlation windows (window length = 30 years) to assess statistically significant (p < 0.1) correlations for temporal stability.…”

Section: Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia's major climatic regions

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Australian seasonal rainfall is strongly affected by large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate influences. In this study, we exploit the links between these precipitation influences, regional rainfall variations, and palaeoclimate proxies in the region to reconstruct Australian regional rainfall between four and eight centuries into the past. We use an extensive network of palaeoclimate records from the Southern Hemisphere to reconstruct cool (April-September) and warm (October-March) season rainfall in eight natural resource management (NRM) regions spanning the Australian continent. Our bi-seasonal rainfall reconstruction aligns well with independent early documentary sources and existing reconstructions. Critically, this reconstruction allows us, for the first time, to place recent observations at a bi-seasonal temporal resolution into a pre-instrumental context, across the entire continent of Australia. We find that recent 30-and 50-year trends towards wetter conditions in tropical northern Australia are highly unusual in the multi-century context of our reconstruction. Recent cool-season drying trends in parts of southern Australia are very unusual, although not unprecedented, across the multi-century context. We also use our reconstruction to investigate the spatial and temporal extent of historical drought events. Our reconstruction reveals that the spatial extent and duration of the Millennium

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Section: Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia's major climatic regions

et al. 2017

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“…Conversion of the proxy into a climatic variable can be achieved through regression or traditional inverse methods as is done with the widely used regional drought atlases (Cook et al, , 2010aPalmer et al, 2015). Nevertheless, in many cases the multivariate nature of proxy data, the presence of large uncertainties and limited spatiotemporal coverage in a calibration proxy network or nonstationary behavior between the proxy predictor and the climate predictand render regression and inversion challenging (e.g., Wilson et al, 2010;Lehner et al, 2012;Smerdon, 2012;Tingley et al, 2012;Coats et al, 2013a;Gallant et al, 2013;Evans et al, 2014;Konecky et al, 2014;Raible et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2014bWang et al, , 2015Konecky et al, 2016).…”

Section: Expectations Of Temporal or Spatial Consistency Betweenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing proxy and model estimates of hydroclimate variability and change over the Common Era

Smerdon¹,

Luterbacher²,

Phipps³

et al. 2017

Clim. Past

104

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Abstract. Water availability is fundamental to societies and ecosystems, but our understanding of variations in hydroclimate (including extreme events, flooding, and decadal periods of drought) is limited because of a paucity of modern instrumental observations that are distributed unevenly across the globe and only span parts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Such data coverage is insufficient for characterizing hydroclimate and its associated dynamics because of its multidecadal to centennial variability and highly regionalized spatial signature. High-resolution (seasonal to decadal) hydroclimatic proxies that span all or parts of the Common Era (CE) and paleoclimate simulations from climate models are therefore important tools for augmenting our understanding of hydroclimate variability. In particular, the comparison of the two sources of information is critical for addressing the uncertainties and limitations of both while enriching each of their interpretations. We review the principal proxy data available for hydroclimatic reconstructions over the CE and highlight the contemporary understanding of how these proxies are interpreted as hydroclimate indicators. We also review the available last-millennium simulations from fully coupled climate models and discuss several outstanding challenges associated with simulating hydroclimate variability and change over the CE. A specific review of simulated hydroclimatic changes forced by volcanic events is provided, as is a discussion of expected improvements in estimated radiative forcings, models, and their implementation in the future. Our review of hydroclimatic proxies and last-millennium model simulations is used as the basis for articulating a variety of considerations and best practices for how to perform proxy-model comparisons of CE hydroclimate. This discussion provides a framework for how best to evaluate hydroclimate variability and its associated dynamics using these comparisons and how they can better inform interpretations of both proxy data and model simulations. We subsequently explore means of using proxy-model comparisons to better constrain and characterize future hydroclimate risks. This is explored specifically in the context of several examples that demonstrate how proxy-model comparisons can be used to quantitatively constrain future hydroclimatic risks as estimated from climate model projections.

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“…Coats et al 2013 found that atmospheric forcing cannot account for the non-stationary teleconnection between tropical Pacific SSTs and 200 mb geopotential height. Gallant et al 2013 found significant variations through time in teleconnections on near-centennial timescales in model simulations forced by internal dynamics alone, but Batehup et al 2015 found that using multiple teleconnected regions minimizes any effects of non-stationarities. As these relationships cannot be assessed within the instrumental record, it is crucial to first evaluate CMIP5 models in the twentieth century when model output and observations overlap, and additionally test the teleconnections of the proxy sites that will be used in CFRs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of CMIP5 models over the northern North Atlantic in the context of forthcoming paleoclimatic reconstructions

2017

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We evaluated 11 coupled climate model simulations regarding the spatial structures of sea-surface temperature (SST) variability in the North Atlantic, during the second half of the twentieth century. The subset of models includes CCSM4, CSIRO, CanESM and MPI-ESM, participating in the fifth phase of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project. The evaluation was performed to determine the potential of these models to be used at a later stage as test beds for the evaluation of climate field reconstruction methods that will use the extremely long-lived bivalve mollusk Arctica islandica, an outstanding paleoclimate archive for the boreal and temperate North Atlantic (Schöne, Glob Planet Change 111:199–225, 2013). Several validation metrics such as the mean bias, variance, spatial and temporal co-variability and trends of the North Atlantic summer SSTs showed that some of the models can be used to test paleoclimatic reconstructions. However, most models showed shortcomings in simulating the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Concerning the co-variability of summer SSTs between proxy sites and the whole North Atlantic SST field, we found that these proxy locations contain a SST signal that might represent a (basin-wide) signal for the north-eastern North Atlantic basin

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Nonstationary Australasian Teleconnections and Implications for Paleoclimate Reconstructions

Cited by 77 publications

References 76 publications

Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia's major climatic regions

Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia's major climatic regions

Comparing proxy and model estimates of hydroclimate variability and change over the Common Era

Evaluation of CMIP5 models over the northern North Atlantic in the context of forthcoming paleoclimatic reconstructions

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