Testing a European winter surface temperature reconstruction in a surrogate climate

Abstract

We evaluate the skill of a European winter surface air temperature reconstruction over the last 500 years using pseudoproxies obtained from the ECHO‐G and HadCM3 climate models. The emphasis is thereby on the effect of the reduction of available predictors back in time, an issue that has not yet been investigated in detail at continental and seasonal scale. It is found that the key factor in determining the reconstruction skill is the number of predictors and particularly their spatial distribution. However considering the usually insufficient spatial and temporal predictor availability in paleo‐reconstructions, the quality of the predictors becomes more important further back in time. Not surprisingly, the lowest reconstruction skill is found in the early period when the predictor network is reduced. Important differences between ECHO‐G and HadCM3‐based pseudoproxy reconstructions are discussed and implications for future analyses are presented.