Regional climate modelling in Southern South America for the Holocene and the 21st century

• Applicant: Dr. Sebastian Wagner
• Subject Area: Atmospheric Science
• Term: from 2007 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 33319756

To support the estimations of future climate changes, climate models have to be tested in climates different from the present, comparing their output with proxy indicators of past climate. This project will analyse the possible causes and regional patterns of climate anomalies in southern South America by means of climate simulations with a high-resolution regional climate model for different periods of the Holocene and the 21st century. Proxy-based reconstruction of lake levels in southeastern Patagonia indicate lower lake levels in the mid-Holocene (7000¿4500 years ago) than during pre-industrial times, i.e. 1500¿1850. The regional simulations will address the role of precipitation and evaporation on lake levels, the moisture sources and the influence of external climate forcings, such as orbital parameters, solar variability and past and future impacts of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The project will also consider the relationships between the largescale atmospheric circulation and local climate anomalies for past and future climates. Downscaling models between large-scale circulation and local hydrological variables will be calibrated using data from the instrumental period and from the regional climate simulations. This will allow to ascertain the stability of these statistical relationships and to apply them to longer transient simulations with a coarse resolution global climate model.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants