Deep Time Data Model Synergy

PRISM4 is a collaborative data analysis and climate modeling effort that continues to evolve into a research product ever more directly relevant to USGS and DOI goals and to the U.S. taxpayer's daily lives. Improved PRISM datasets, comprising the most comprehensive global reconstruction for any warm period prior to the recent past, are in constant demand by national and international global climate modelers. The PRISM reconstruction challenges our understanding of the sensitivity of key components of the climate system and how we simulate that system (i.e., polar vs. tropical sensitivity, the role of ocean circulation in a warming climate, the hydrological impact of altered storm tracks, and the regional climate impacts of modified atmospheric and oceanic energy transport systems) and is used exclusively by PlioMIP in model intercomparisons designed to identify model-specific biases as well as in testing the sensitivity of future climate models.

contact: Harry Dowsett