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An Introduction to the KIHZ Project The description of the climate system and the quantification of its natural variability and dynamics is essential to assess an ongoing anthropogenic cli mate change and to validate climate and biogeochemical models to allow for reliable projections into the future. Because the spatio-temporal coverage of direct meteorological observations is rather limited, high-resolution and ab solutely dated climate archives represent the only key to a quantification of seasonal to millenial climate variations in the past. Furthermore, climate mod els provide insights into the major processes and causes relevant for climate variability on these time scales. Both approaches represent one side of the same medal, however melting both sides down to one combined effort is often hampered by obstacles defined by the different nature of the approaches. For instance, General Circulation Models (GCMs) per se deal with spatially resolved data representing real climate variables in the model world (such as temperature or precipitation) with each model run reflecting one possible realization of climate history under given boundary conditions. In contrast, the records of natural climate archives are influenced by climate variations as they took place in reality, however, are often representative of local climate conditions only. Moreover, the climate information deduced from natural archives is in nearly all cases based on climate proxies, whose relationship to real climate variables, the so called transfer function, has to be established beforehand.
List of contents
1 The Holocene: Considerations with Regard to its Climate and Climate Archives.- 2 Nonlinear Dynamics of the Climate System.- 3 A Discourse About Quasi-realistic Climate Models and Their Applications in Paleoclimatic Studies.- 4 Holocene Climate Variability from Model Simulations - State of the Art.- 5 Marine Paleoclimatology - Motivation, Tools, and Results.- 6 Corals as Climate Archive.- 7 Annually Laminated Lake Sediments and Their Palaeoclimatic Relevance.- 8 Interpreting Climate Proxies from Tree-rings.- 9 The Environmental and Climate Record in Polar Ice Cores.- 10 Reconstructing Large-scale Variability from Palaeoclimatic Evidence by Means of Data Assimilation Through Upscaling and Nudging (DATUN).- 11 Mid- to Late Holocene Lake Ecosystem Response to Catchment and Climatic Changes - A Detailed Varve Analysis of Lake Holzmaar (Germany).- 12 Holocene Palaeoclimate in the Saharo-Arabian Desert.- 13 Transfer Functions for Paleoclimate Reconstructions - Theory and Methods.- 14 Transfer Functions for Paleoclimate Reconstructions - Applications.- 15 Climate Information from Stable Hydrogen and Carbon Isotopes of C3 Plants - Growth Chamber Experiments and Field Observations.- 16 Detection of Climate Modes as Recorded in a Seasonal-resolution Coral Record Covering the Last 250 Years.- 17 Phase Stability of the Solar Schwabe Cycle in Lake Holzmaar, Germany, and GISP2, Greenland, between 10,000 and 9,000 cal. BP.- 18 Variable Freshwater Input to the Arctic Ocean During the Holocene: Implications for Large-Scale Ocean-Sea Ice Dynamics as Simulated by a Circulation Model.- 19 Forced Climate Variability During the Last Millennium with the Earth System Model CLIMBER-2.- 20 The Contribution of High-resolution Magnetostratigraphic Analyses to PaleoclimaticReconstructions.- 21 Internal Climate Variability in Global and Regional Climate Models.- 22 Climate Diagnostics by Adjoint Modelling: A Feasibility Study.- 23 Evidence for the Climate During the Late Maunder Minimum from Proxy Data and Model Simulations Available Within KIHZ.- References.
About the author
Prof. Dr. Hubertus Fischer, Universität Hannover, Vorsitzender der Theodor Fontane Gesellschaft; Arbeiten über Themen aus der mittelalterlichen und neuen deutschen Literatur, Beiträge zur Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts und insbesondere Theodor Fontane.
Summary
An Introduction to the KIHZ Project The description of the climate system and the quantification of its natural variability and dynamics is essential to assess an ongoing anthropogenic cli mate change and to validate climate and biogeochemical models to allow for reliable projections into the future. Because the spatio-temporal coverage of direct meteorological observations is rather limited, high-resolution and ab solutely dated climate archives represent the only key to a quantification of seasonal to millenial climate variations in the past. Furthermore, climate mod els provide insights into the major processes and causes relevant for climate variability on these time scales. Both approaches represent one side of the same medal, however melting both sides down to one combined effort is often hampered by obstacles defined by the different nature of the approaches. For instance, General Circulation Models (GCMs) per se deal with spatially resolved data representing real climate variables in the model world (such as temperature or precipitation) with each model run reflecting one possible realization of climate history under given boundary conditions. In contrast, the records of natural climate archives are influenced by climate variations as they took place in reality, however, are often representative of local climate conditions only. Moreover, the climate information deduced from natural archives is in nearly all cases based on climate proxies, whose relationship to real climate variables, the so called transfer function, has to be established beforehand.
Additional text
From the reviews:
"This book presents peer-viewed results from a final workshop in 2001 … . The book … is a very valuable contribution. … This book is recommended to anyone interested in the most challenging topic of global climate change." (Environmental Geology, Vol. 49, 2006)
"The climate in historical times represents outcomes of a KIHZ meeting concerned with natural climate variability. … this volume offers an accessible overview of current knowledge concerning the reconstruction of past climate. It will interest researchers and students over a broad range of disciplines including atmospheric science, environmental sciences, geography and geosciences." (Nicholas Betts, The Holocene, Vol. 15 (6), 2005)
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From the reviews:
"This book presents peer-viewed results from a final workshop in 2001 ... . The book ... is a very valuable contribution. ... This book is recommended to anyone interested in the most challenging topic of global climate change." (Environmental Geology, Vol. 49, 2006)
"The climate in historical times represents outcomes of a KIHZ meeting concerned with natural climate variability. ... this volume offers an accessible overview of current knowledge concerning the reconstruction of past climate. It will interest researchers and students over a broad range of disciplines including atmospheric science, environmental sciences, geography and geosciences." (Nicholas Betts, The Holocene, Vol. 15 (6), 2005)
