Hello everyone,
Recently, I was looking for some basic article regarding climate modeling, I found some interesting fact that some of the authors considered paleoclimate modeling is a very difficult task as compared to the modern climate modeling.
I do not understand their argument. I thought paleoclimate modeling is relatively easier because of a single parameter (i.e. natural variability) is involved. However, in modern climate modeling, two components (ie natural as well as anthropogenic) are involved.
Because it is not the same to model something with real data, than with information from ice or rocks, where we assume the past climate, through geological data.
To have a realistic simulation, you need to have surface boundary layer data to initialize the model. For example Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Topography, Ice coverage, Vegetation, Surface Temperature and wind velocity, etc. For the moment, PMIP3, CMIP5 reconstructed data for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and Holocene period give a big picture of some environmental variables for GCM models.
there weren't much technology back then to acquire real data, so basically that date existing features to get past information, then they support them with some assumptions.
Let's not forget, among other things, that "modern climate modelling" often means the next 100-150 years; "paleoclimate modelling" means 10^5-10^6 years backwards. This also means that natural long-term variability (difficult to understand and model) is not involved as much in the former case as in the latter, while for modern climate the CO2 forcing is quite well understood.
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