Mitigation of Global Cooling By Stratospheric Chemistry Feedbacks in a Simulation of the Last Glacial Maximum

A series of numerical simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum (21 kyr B.P.) climate are performed by using an Earth System Model of the Meteorological Research Institute of the Japan Meteorological Agency to investigate the impact of stratospheric ozone profile on the surface climate with decreased CO₂ condition and different orbital parameters. The contribution of the interactive ozone chemistry reveals a significant anomaly of +0.5 K (approximately 20 %) in the tropics and up to +1.5 K in high-latitudes for the annual mean zonal mean surface air temperature compared with those of the corresponding experiments with a prescribed ozone profile for preindustrial simulation of the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). In the tropics, this mitigation of global cooling is related to longwave radiative feedbacks associated with circulation-driven increases in lower stratospheric ozone and related increase in stratospheric water vapor and related decrease in cirrus cloud. The relations are opposite signs to and consistent with those of a global warming simulation. In high-latitudes, the polar amplification of mitigation of cooling associated with the change of sea ice area that is the same sign to and consistent with our previous paleoclimate simulation in the mid-Holocene (6 kyr B.P.). We recommend that climate models include sea ice and ozone profile that are consistent with CO₂ concentration.