• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

RealClimate

Climate science from climate scientists...

  • Home
  • Start here
  • Contributors
  • Archives
You are here: Home / Extras / Glossary / Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum

Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum

28 Nov 2004 by group

This is a somewhat outdated term used to refer to a sub-interval of the Holocene period from 5000-7000 years ago during which it was once thought that the earth was warmer than today. We now know that conditions at this time were probably warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the extratropics of the Northern Hemisphere. This summer warming appears to have been due to astronomical factors that favoured warmer Northern summers, but colder Northern winters and colder tropics, than today (see Hewitt and Mitchell, 1998; Ganopolski et al, 1998). The best available evidence from recent peer-reviewed studies suggests that annual, global mean warmth was probably similar to pre-20th century warmth, but less than late 20th century warmth, at this time (see Kitoh and Murakami, 2002).

More information about the so-called “Mid-Holocene Optimum” can be found here.

References:

Ganopolski, A., C. Kubatzki, M. Claussen, V. Brovkin, and V. Petoukhov, The Influence of Vegetation-Atmosphere-Ocean Interaction on Climate During the Mid-Holocene, Science, 280, 1916-1919, 1998.

Hewitt, C.D. and J.F.B. Mitchell, A Fully Coupled GCM Simulation of the Climate of the Mid-Holocene, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 361-364, 1998.

Kitoh, A., and S. Murakami, Tropical Pacific Climate at the mid-Holocene and the Last Glacial Maximum simulated by a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model, Paleoceanography, 17, 1-13, 2002.

Filed Under: Glossary

Primary Sidebar

Email Notification

get new posts sent to you automatically (free)
Loading

Recent Posts

  • The Scafetta Saga
  • As Soon as Possible
  • Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • The AMOC: tipping this century, or not?
  • Unforced Variations: Aug 2023
  • What is happening in the Atlantic Ocean to the AMOC?

Our Books

Book covers
This list of books since 2005 (in reverse chronological order) that we have been involved in, accompanied by the publisher’s official description, and some comments of independent reviewers of the work.
All Books >>

Recent Comments

  • Piotr on The Scafetta Saga
  • Mal Adapted on The Scafetta Saga
  • nigelj on Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • nigelj on Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • nigelj on Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • Tomáš Kalisz on Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • Paul Pukite (@whut) on The Scafetta Saga
  • Victor on Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • Mal Adapted on The Scafetta Saga
  • zebra on Unforced variations: Sep 2023
  • Keith Woollard on The Scafetta Saga
  • Paul Pukite (@whut) on The Scafetta Saga

Footer

ABOUT

  • About
  • Translations
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Page
  • Login

DATA AND GRAPHICS

  • Data Sources
  • Climate model projections compared to observations
  • Surface temperature graphics
  • Miscellaneous Climate Graphics

INDEX

  • Acronym index
  • Index

Realclimate Stats

1,313 posts

10 pages

232,554 comments

Copyright © 2023 · RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.