The Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project is a project, somewhat along the lines of
AMIP or
CMIP, to coordinate and encourage the systematic study of
atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) and to assess their ability to simulate large
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
s such as those that occurred in the distant past. Project goals include identifying common responses of AGCMs to imposed paleoclimate "boundary conditions," understanding the differences in model responses, comparing model results with paleoclimate data, and providing AGCM results for use in helping in the analysis and interpretation of paleoclimate data. PMIP is initially focussing on the mid-
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...
(6,000 years before present) and the
Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent.
Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...
(21,000 yr BP) because climatic conditions were remarkably different at those times, and because relatively large amounts of paleoclimate data exist for these periods. The major "forcing" factors are also relatively well known at these times. Some of the paleoclimate features simulated by models in previous studies seem consistent with paleoclimatic data, but others do not. One of the goals of PMIP is to determine which results are model-dependent. The PMIP experiments are limited to studying the equilibrium response of the atmosphere (and such surface characteristics as snow cover) to changes in boundary conditions (e.g., insolation, ice-sheet distribution, CO
2 concentration, etc.
External links
PMIP Home pagePMIP2 Home pageMOTIF Home page
Climatological research
Paleoclimatology
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