paleoclimate reconstruction challenge

introduction

The last-millennium Paleoclimate Reconstruction Challenge will allow the community to directly address concerns regarding the validity of climate reconstructions and to establish an objective benchmark for climate reconstructions today.

The idea is to use results from state-of-the-art coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) in both open and blind-test reconstruction exercises. Individual reconstruction groups (and anyone who would like to participate) will be given a set of realistic pseudo-proxy series and calibration “instrumental data” drawn from the model output. They will, to the best of their techniques’ ability, reconstruct the simulated climate evolution. By comparing reconstructions with the full, “true” model climates this Challenge offers an indirect but independent evaluation of the overall skills currently available in climate reconstructions.

The goal is not to rate individual techniques (although each group can ultimately assess their performance to great detail), rather, the intention is to see how much of the true climate can be described with the combined set of reconstruction results, to determine which aspects of the overall or regional climate are captured well and whether important elements are missed.