Climate of the Past www.clim-past.net 1814-9324 1814-9332 5 3 2009 10.5194/cp-5-389-2009 http://www.clim-past.net/5/389/2009/ http://www.clim-past.net/5/389/2009/cp-5-389-2009.html http://www.clim-past.net/5/389/2009/cp-5-389-2009.pdf 389 401 2009-07-22 The 15th century Arctic warming in coupled model simulations with data assimilation E. Crespin elisabeth.crespin@uclouvain.be H. Goosse T. Fichefet M. E. Mann Université catholique de Louvain, Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique Georges Lemaître, Chemin du Cyclotron, 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Department of Meteorology, Department of Geosciences, and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA An ensemble of simulations of the climate of the past millennium conducted with a three-dimensional climate model of intermediate complexity are constrained to follow temperature histories obtained from a recent compilation of well-calibrated surface temperature proxies using a simple data assimilation technique. Those simulations provide a reconstruction of the climate of the Arctic that is compatible with the model physics, the forcing applied and the proxy records. Available observational data, proxy-based reconstructions and our model results suggest that the Arctic climate is characterized by substantial variations in surface temperature over the past millennium. 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