Climate Feedbacks

External climate forcings can also be found in the distant past and the climate response to them may guide us in understanding response to future forcings. Our work therefore has involved research into paleoclimate. We've undertaken two studies in this area, each of which examines novel ways in which orbital forcing can affect earth's climate. In the first, we examined the simulated response of tropical climate to pure precessional forcing, and found that the signals are competitive with the system's response to the presence of an ice sheet in mid-latitudes. In the second, we examined the simulated dynamical response of the northern annular mode to orbital forcing, and found that this may explain the curious warmth of the last interglacial period in Europe, despite the lack of strong direct orbital forcing at this time.

Our general interests in climate and climate variability has led us to examine other problems, including the ocean variability in the southern hemisphere resulting from the annular mode and a study of the controls on the mean depth of the planetary boundary layer.

Go to the Regional Climate Dynamics page