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Abstract. Paleoclimate data assimilation (DA) is a tool for reconstructing past climates that directly integrates proxy records with climate model output. Despite the potential for DA to expand the scope of quantitative paleoclimatology, these methods remain difficult to implement in practice due to the multi-faceted requirements and data handling necessary for DA reconstructions, the diversity of DA methods, and the need for computationally efficient algorithms. Here, we present DASH, a MATLAB toolbox designed to facilitate paleoclimate DA analyses. DASH provides command line and scripting tools that implement common tasks in DA workflows. The toolbox is highly modular and is not built around any specific analysis, and thus DASH supports paleoclimate DA for a wide variety of time periods, spatial regions, proxy networks, and algorithms. DASH includes tools for integrating and cataloguing data stored in disparate formats, building state vector ensembles, and running proxy (system) forward models. The toolbox also provides optimized algorithms for implementing ensemble Kalman filters, particle filters, and optimal sensor analyses with variable and modular parameters. This paper reviews the key components of the DASH toolbox and presents examples illustrating DASH's use for paleoclimate DA applications.
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This content will become publicly available on December 12, 2025
Temporal Comparisons Involving Paleoclimate Data Assimilation: Challenges & Remedies
Abstract Paleoclimate reconstructions are increasingly central to climate assessments, placing recent and future variability in a broader historical context. Paleoclimate reconstructions are increasingly central to climate assessments, placing recent and future variability in a broader historical context. Several estimation methods produce plumes of climate trajectories that practitioners often want to compare to other reconstruction ensembles, or to deterministic trajectories produced by other means, such as global climate models. Of particular interest are “offline” data assimilation (DA) methods, which have recently been adapted to paleoclimatology. Offline DA lacks an explicit model connecting time instants, so its ensemble members are not true system trajectories. This obscures quantitative comparisons, particularly when considering the ensemble mean in isolation. We propose several resampling methods to introduce a priori constraints on temporal behavior, as well as a general notion, called plume distance, to carry out quantitative comparisons between collections of climate trajectories (“plumes”). The plume distance provides a norm in the same physical units as the variable of interest (e.g. °C for temperature), and lends itself to assessments of statistical significance. We apply these tools to four paleoclimate comparisons: (1) global mean surface temperature (GMST) in the online and offline versions of the Last Millennium Reanalysis (v2.1); (2) GMST from these two ensembles to simulations of the Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project past1000 ensemble; (3) LMRv2.1 to the PAGES 2k (2019) ensemble of GMST and (4) northern hemisphere mean surface temperature from LMR v2.1 to the Büntgen et al. (2021) ensemble. Results generally show more compatibility between these ensembles than is visually apparent. The proposed methodology is implemented in an open-source Python package, and we discuss possible applications of the plume distance framework beyond paleoclimatology.
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- PAR ID:
- 10565461
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Meteorological Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Climate
- ISSN:
- 0894-8755
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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