Climate Dynamics

, Volume 37, Issue 1–2, pp 357–375 | Cite as

Atmospheric circulation changes and neoglacial conditions in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes: insights from PMIP2 simulations at 6 kyr

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Abstract

Glacial geologic studies in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) mid-latitudes (40–54°S) indicate renewed glacial activity in southern South America (Patagonia) and New Zealand’s (NZ) South Island starting at ∼7 kyr, the so-called neoglaciation. Available data indicate that neoglacial advances in these regions occurred during a rising trend in atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations, lower-than-present but increasing summer insolation and seasonality contrasts. In this paper we examine the climatological context in which neoglaciations occurred through analysis of the complete Paleoclimate Modelling Inter-comparison Project (PMIP2) database of simulations at 6 kyr for the SH. We observe that the amplitude of the annual insolation cycle in the SH did not change significantly at 6 kyr compared to the pre-industrial values, the largest difference occurring in autumn (MAM, negative anomalies) and spring (SON, positive anomalies). The simulated changes in temperatures over the SH respond to the insolation changes, with a 1–2 month delay over the oceans. This results in a reduced amplitude of the annual cycle of temperature and precipitation over most continental regions, except over Patagonia and NZ, that show a slight increase. In contrast, large-scale circulation features, such as the low and upper level winds and the subtropical anticyclones show an amplified annual cycle, as a direct response to the increased/decreased insolation during the transitional seasons SON/MAM. In the annual mean, there is a small but consistent equatorward shift of the latitude of maximum wind speed of 1–3° over the entire SH, which results in a small increase of wind speed over the South Pacific and Atlantic Oceans north of ∼50°S and a widespread decline south of 50°S. PMIP2 simulations for 6 kyr, indicate that in the annual mean, the SH mid-latitudes were colder, wetter and with stronger winds north of about 50°S. These conditions are consistent with the observed neoglacial advances in the region, as well as with terrestrial paleoclimate records from Patagonia that indicate cooling and a multi-millennial rising trend in Southern Westerly Wind intensity starting at ∼7.8 kyr.

Keywords

Patagonia New Zealand Southern Hemisphere Westerlies PMIP2 Neoglaciations Holocene Modelling 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Bartlein for providing the insolation data from which Fig. 1 was constructed. We acknowledge the international modelling groups for providing their data for analysis, the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE) for collecting and archiving the model data. The PMIP2/MOTIF Data Archive is supported by CEA, CNRS, the EU project MOTIF (EVK2-CT-2002-00153) and the Programme National d’Etude de la Dynamique du Climat (PNEDC). The analyses were performed using version mm-dd-yyyy of the database. More information is available on http://www-lsce.cea.fr/pmip/ and http://www-lsce.cea.fr/motif. This investigation was supported by FONDECYT grant # 1090588 and Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad (IEB) and Iniciativa Científica Milenio P05002, contract PFB-23.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of GeophysicsUniversity of ChileSantiagoChile
  2. 2.Department of EcologyUniversity of ChileSantiagoChile

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