Mid-Holocene Northern Hemisphere warming driven by Arctic amplification

Abstract

The Holocene thermal maximum was characterized by strong summer solar heating that substantially increased the summertime temperature relative to preindustrial climate. However, the summer warming was compensated by weaker winter insolation, and the annual mean temperature of the Holocene thermal maximum remains ambiguous. Using multimodel mid-Holocene simulations, we show that the annual mean Northern Hemisphere temperature is strongly correlated with the degree of Arctic amplification and sea ice loss. Additional model experiments show that the summer Arctic sea ice loss persists into winter and increases the mid- and high-latitude temperatures. These results are evaluated against four proxy datasets to verify that the annual mean northern high-latitude temperature during the mid-Holocene was warmer than the preindustrial climate, because of the seasonally rectified temperature increase driven by the Arctic amplification. This study offers a resolution to the “Holocene temperature conundrum”, a well-known discrepancy between paleo-proxies and climate model simulations of Holocene thermal maximum.