science activities

focus 2 - regional climate dynamics

Activities under this Focus add to a better understanding of past climatic and environmental dynamics (climate modes, low-to-high latitude and longitudinal linkages, and interregional teleconnections) by comparison of reconstructions and model simulations. Activities contribute towards a global coverage of high-resolution, well-dated reconstructions of past climate-state parameters (temperature, precipitation, atmospheric pressure fields) and of past modes of climate variability, based on natural archives and documentary data. Interest is focussed on past warm periods, including the Holocene (here particularly the last 2000 years) and previous interglacials.

Driving Questions:
- How have regional climate and the Earth’s natural environment changed in the past?
- What are the main modes of variability at orbital to sub-decadal timescales?
- How do they relate to each other and to the mean state of the climate system?


Focus Leaders: Heinz Wanner, Eystein Jansen, Cathy Whitlock and José Carriquiry



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