Simulation and analysis of abrupt climate change during the last glacial

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With our project, we would like to address the cause of abrupt climate changes that occurred during the last glacial. While the so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events are documented in various climate archives, little evidence exists concerning their trigger. In particular, the origin of the characteristic time scale of ~1470 years that is apparently inherent in the events has not yet been successfully identified.In the first part of the project, we plan to analyse possible process chains by which a moderate temperature anomaly in the North Atlantic region can trigger abrupt shifts of the thermohaline circulation (THC) in an intermediate-complexity climate system model. We will further investigate to what degree DO events can be simulated by a response of the THC to century-scale variations in solar activity.In the second part of the project, we will validate key results of the first year by a comparison of our model simulations with paleodata from various climate archives and with results from a more complex follow-up model.