Erroneous Model Field Representations in Multiple Pseudoproxy Studies: Corrections and Implications

Pseudoproxy experiments evaluate statistical methods used to reconstruct climate fields from paleoclimatic proxies during the Common Era. These experiments typically employ output from millennial simulations by general circulation models (GCMs). It is demonstrated that multiple published pseudoproxy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of climate 2010-10, Vol.23 (20), p.5548-5554
Main Authors: Smerdon, Jason E., Kaplan, Alexey, Amrhein, Daniel E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Climate change
Climate models
Climate proxies
Climate system
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Experiments
External geophysics
Meteorology
Modeling
Proxy reporting
Proxy statements
Sampling distributions
Standard deviation
Standardization
Statistical methods
Studies
Surface temperature
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Summary:Pseudoproxy experiments evaluate statistical methods used to reconstruct climate fields from paleoclimatic proxies during the Common Era. These experiments typically employ output from millennial simulations by general circulation models (GCMs). It is demonstrated that multiple published pseudoproxy studies have used erroneously processed GCM surface temperature fields: the NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM), version 1.4, field was incorrectly oriented geographically and the GKSS ECHO-g FOR1 field was corrupted by a hemispheric-scale smoothing in the Western Hemisphere. These problems are not associated with the original model simulations; they instead arose because of incorrect processing of the model data for the pseudoproxy experiments. The consequences of these problems are evaluated for the studies in which the incorrect fields were used. Some quantitative results are invalidated by the findings: these include all experiments that used the corrupted ECHO-g field and those aspects of previous CCSM experiments that focused on Niño-3 reconstructions. Other results derived from the CCSM field can be reinterpreted based on the information provided herein and their qualitative characteristics remain similar.
ISSN:0894-8755
1520-0442
DOI:10.1175/2010JCLI3742.1