Paleoclimate Working Group (PWG)

The Paleoclimate Working Group (PWG) is a consortium of scientists interested in modeling and understanding past Earth climates, allowing a long-term perspective on the nature of Earth-system change.

With members from universities and laboratories worldwide, and interests ranging from early Earth to the recent millennium, we conduct scientific modeling experiments to establish relationships between forcings and feedbacks for specific time periods, and to explore the transient nature of these responses.

Comparing model results to observational data is an important component of the PWG efforts. We also test model components developed by other CESM working groups in a paleoclimate context and develop new capabilities that allow better assessment of model simulations against data. PWG workshops and meetings are open to the science community interested in past states of the Earth system; if you wish to attend future PWG meetings or stay connected with our activities, please subscribe to the Paleoclimate mailing list.

One of the goals of the Paleoclimate Working Group is to allow the community to address scientific questions about past climates in Earth history using the CESM model. Refer to the online paleo resources for background on the CESM code and dataset modifications that may be necessary for paleoclimate simulations.

CO2 parts per million; see Foster et al. 2017

Figure: CO2 parts per million, ppm: see Foster et al., Nat. Comm., 2017.

Paleoclimate Co Chairs

  • Jiang Zhu
    to
    NCAR-CGD, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000
  • Samantha Stevenson
    to
    Bren School of Environmental Sciences and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
  • Ran Feng
    to
    University of Connecticut, Computational Climate Change Lab, 354 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269