According to the main conclusion reached by the PMIP/PAGES/MARUM workshop COMPARE2012 (Kucera et al., 2012), paleoclimatic data-model comparison needs to be quantitative and “intelligent”, in the sense that it allows to identify and evaluate the processes that caused past climate changes.
To achieve this, we want to develop and test methods that facilitate data-model comparison and data analysis and thereby enable an assessment of the Earth system models (ESMs) used in WG1 and the homogenized paleoclimatic data synthesis generated in WP3.1/WP3.2. Because water isotope data are among the most abundant paleoclimatic data, we focus the development of data-model interfaces on the implementation of stable water isotope diagnostics in global and regional climate models.
Furthermore, we aim to assimilate time slice and time series products from WP3.1/WP3.2 for selected time in global and regional climate models, in order to provide steady-state as well as transient state estimates periods that are consistent with both data and models and their uncertainties.
Finally, we intend to make use of regional climate models for dynamical downscaling of the results obtained by WG1 to facilitate local-scale data-model comparison.