Progress in rapid climate changes and their modeling study in millennial and centennial scales

Rapid climate change at millennial and centennial scales is one of the most important aspects in paleoclimate study. It has been found that rapid climate change at millennial and centennial scales is a global phenomenon during both the glacial age and the Holocene with amplitudes typical of geological or astronomical time-scales. Simulations of glacial and Holocene climate changes have demonstrated the response of the climate system to the changes of earth orbital parameter and the importance of variations in feedbacks of ocean, vegetation, icecap and greenhouse gases. Modeling experiments suggest that the Atlantic thermohaline circulation was sensitive to the freshwater input into the North Atlantic and was closely related to the rapid climate changes during the last glacial age and the Holocene. Adopting the Earth-system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs), CLIMBER-2, the response of East Asian climate change to Dansgaard/Oeschger and Heinrich events during the typical last glacial period (60 ka B.P.-20 ka B.P.) and impacts of ice on the Tibetan plateau on Holocene climate change were stimulated, studied and revealed. Further progress of paleoclimate modeling depends on developing finer-grid models and reconstructing more reliable boundary conditions. More attention should be paid on the study of mechanisms of abrupt climatic changes as well as regional climate changes in the background of global climate change. © Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH 2008.