Inter-hemispheric comparison of climate change in the last millennium based on the ECHO-G simulation

Abstract

The commonality and difference in the variations of temperature and precipitation between the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and Southern Hemispheres (SH) in the last millennium are investigated by analysis of the millennium simulation with the ECHO-G coupled climate model. The NH mean temperature variations are generally consistent with those of the SH counterpart on the interannual, decadal and centennial time scales. But, the transition times between the medieval warm period (MWP), the little ice age (LIA), and the present-day warm period (PWP) in the NH leads that in the SH; and the anomaly amplitude in the NH is significantly larger than the SH counterpart. For the precipitation variations, the NH mean precipitation varies in-phase with the SH mean precipitation on decadal and centennial scales (mainly in the mid-high latitudes) but out-of-phase on the interannual scale (mainly in the low latitudes). During the MWP the warming has comparable amplitude in the NH and SH; however, during the PWP the NH warming is considerably stronger than the SH warming. Further, the present-day temperature rises in the NH high latitudes but decreases in the SH high latitudes, which is very different from the warming pattern during the MWP. Since during the MWP the greenhouse gases (GHG) concentration stayed at a low level, we infer that the present-day opposite temperature tendency in the high latitudes between the two hemispheres may be related to the increase of the GHG concentration.