DEKLIM – Introduction

The Climate and Sediment Group at the JGU Mainz is taking part in the DEKLIM Project (German Climate Research Programme). The overarching aim of this programm is to improve climate predictability at global and regional scales by achieving a better understanding of long-term processes and climate modes:

  1. Detailed reconstructions of the temporal and spatial structure of climate change at centennial-to-millennial timescales from paleoclimatic proxy data.
  2. Climate modeling studies to disentangle the physical and biogeochemical processes involved in the generation of these modes.

The research objective within DEKLIM-Paleo is related to the driving mechanisms of past and future climate change. Specific questions are related to the interaction of vegetation, atmospheric dynamics, thermohaline circulation, hydrosphere, and carbon cycle. Emphasis is placed on multiple states of the system, low-frequency climate modes, and the understanding of atmospheric and oceanic interconnections (Northern versus Southern Hemisphere forcing, ocean interconnections, relationships between low and high latitudes).