Gustav Strandberg
Bronze Age climate, ca. 2 500 years ago (2.5 ka), was simulated by two regional climate models (RCM) for a European domain (CORDEX EUR-44) at a grid resolution of ~50 km. The two regional models RCA4 (developed at SMHI) and HCLIM38 (developed within the HCLIM consortium) were forced by the global climate model (GCM) EC-Earth. The dataset contains selected output data from the simulations.
The 2.5 ka climate was simulated with different estimates of land cover: one reconstructed land cover based on pollen data, and one estimate simulated by a vegetation model. The pollen-based land cover is reconstructed using the REVEALS model (a model to estimate vegetation from pollen data), statistical analysis and a dataset for estimated past anthropogenic land use (KK10). The RCMs were also run with a simulation of potential land cover from a dynamical vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS). This gives four simulations of Bronze Age climate, two with each RCM. In addition, pre-industrial (PI) climate is simulated.
The results can be used as a description of Bronze Age climate. The PI simulations can be used as reference. The simulations can also be used to study the effect of anthropogenic land-cover changes, comparing simulations using potential land cover with simulations using reconstructed land cover. Furthermore, the simulations can be used to estimate the sensitivity of the RCMs to differences in land cover, comparing simulations using different potential land cover.
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Citation
Gustav Strandberg (2023) Bronze Age climate in Europe simulated with two regional climate models using pollen-based and simulated land cover. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/strandberg-2023-bronze-age-1
References
Strandberg G, Chen J, Fyfe R, Kjellström E, Lindström J, Poska A, Zhang Q, Gaillard M-J (2023) Did the Bronze Age deforestation of Europe affect its climate?: a regional climate-model study using pollen-based land-cover reconstructions (in prep.)
Data description
The dataset contains RCM results from the LandClim II project presented in the study by Strandberg et al. (2023).
Time periods: PI (30 year time slice) and 2.5 ka (50 year time slice)
RCMs: RCA4, HCLIM38
Domain: Europe (CORDEX EUR-44, ~50 km)
Driving GCM: EC-Earth
For 2.5 ka both RCMs are run with two different land covers:
- 25k-L: LPJ-GUESS potential land cover.
- 25k-R: Reconstructed land cover based on REVEALS and KK10.
Available data: monthly data for standard meteorological data such as temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, pressure, cloud cover.
Variables
- albl - albedo
- clt - cloud fraction
- evspsbl - evapotranspiration
- hfls - latent heat flux
- hfss - sensible heat flux
- pr - precipitation
- psl - sea level pressure
- rlds - downwards longwave radiation at surface
- rsds - downwards shortwave radiation at surface
- ta850 - temperature at 850 hPa
- ta925 - temperature at 925 hPa
- tas- temperature at 2m
- tasmax - daily maximum temperature at 2 m
- tasmin - daily minimum temperature at 2 m
- ts - surface temperature
File type: NetCDF-3
The dataset is divided into three folders: 25k-L, 25k-R, PI, containing 30, 30 and 29 files respectively. Total file size: 1.4 GB.
Comments
The entire dataset can be downloaded in a zip file here. Individual files can also be downloaded directly from their original location at the National Supercomputer Centre (NSC), at Linköping University, both via http and rsync.
The simulations were performed at the Rossby Centre, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI).