Abstract
AbstractPaleoclimate reconstructions are now integral to climate assessments, yet the consequences of using different methodologies and proxy data require rigorous benchmarking. Pseudoproxy experiments (PPEs) provide a tractable and transparent test bed for evaluating climate reconstruction methods and their sensitivity to aspects of real-world proxy networks. Here we develop a dataset that leverages proxy system models (PSMs) for this purpose, which emulates the essential physical, chemical, biological, and geological processes that translate climate signals into proxy records, making these synthetic proxies more relevant to the real world. We apply a suite of PSMs to emulate the widely-used PAGES 2k dataset, including realistic spatiotemporal sampling and error structure. A hierarchical approach allows us to produce many variants of this base dataset, isolating the impact of sampling bias in time and space, representation error, sampling error, and other assumptions. Combining these various experiments produces a rich dataset (“pseudoPAGES2k”) for many applications. As an illustration, we show how to conduct a PPE with this dataset based on emerging climate field reconstruction techniques.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Library and Information Sciences,Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty,Computer Science Applications,Education,Information Systems,Statistics and Probability
Reference116 articles.
1. IPCC. Summary for policymakers. In Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. (eds.) Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
2. Tingley, M. P. et al. Piecing together the past: statistical insights into paleoclimatic reconstructions. Quaternary Science Reviews 35, 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.01.012 (2012).
3. Jones, J. M. & Widmann, M. Early peak in Antarctic oscillation index. Nature 432, 290–291, https://doi.org/10.1038/432290b (2004).
4. Goosse, H. et al. The origin of the European “Medieval Warm Period”. Climate of the Past 2, 99–113, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-2-99-2006 (2006).
5. Gebhardt, C., Kühl, N., Hense, A. & Litt, T. Reconstruction of Quaternary temperature fields by dynamically consistent smoothing. Climate Dynamics 30, 421–437, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-007-0299-9 (2008).