Articles | Volume 18, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1385-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1385-2022
Research article
 | 
23 Jun 2022
Research article |  | 23 Jun 2022

The warm winter paradox in the Pliocene northern high latitudes

Julia C. Tindall, Alan M. Haywood, Ulrich Salzmann, Aisling M. Dolan, and Tamara Fletcher

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Short summary
The mid-Pliocene (MP; ∼3.0 Ma) had CO2 levels similar to today and average temperatures ∼3°C warmer. At terrestrial high latitudes, MP temperatures from climate models are much lower than those reconstructed from data. This mismatch occurs in the winter but not the summer. The winter model–data mismatch likely has multiple causes. One novel cause is that the MP climate may be outside the modern sample, and errors could occur when using information from the modern era to reconstruct climate.