Paleoclimate Modeling
Modeling the paleoclimate forms one of the essential steps in socio-ecological research as we explore human-environment connectedness. Climate is a dynamic entity with mechanisms that bring periodic changes on its own. As natural climate change takes place it makes certain actions/decisions of human societies more probable. In climate history, there are unstable phases (also known as the Bond Events), which bring unusually wetter or drier conditions. On the other hand, as human activities intensify in a given landscape, certain risks emerge such as higher rates of erosion, soil exhaustion, deforestation, and salinization. Consequently; climate patterns, human actions/decisions, and impacts on the ecosystem are tightly connected. We use both the synoptic approach and the Global Circulation Models for reconstructing the paleoclimate followed by comparisons with regional and supra-regional proxy data sets such as pollen and isotope.
Macrophysical Climate Model
This synoptic, heat-budget paleoclimate model uses modern 30-year meteorological observations to retrodict past climate patterns such as precipitation and temperature at a given point. The model output is at centennial temporal resolution. The spatial resolution is determined by the number of stations used in the modeling. When compared with local and regional proxy data, the results of this paleoclimate model agree well with the paleoclimate patterns displayed by pollen and isotope.
Global Circulation Models
GCMs are much more complicated modeling platforms than synoptic models. Unlike synoptic models, GCMs require the use of high-performance computing as they integrate a multitude of variables. The temporal resolution is high (i.e., 6 hours) but the spatial resolution is low (around 200 km grids). However, through statistical or dynamical downscaling, the latter may be increased to enhance the results. In the last few years, already downscaled results of GCMs (e.g., PaleoView, Chelsa-Trace 21k) are also available for researchers.
