The Last Glacial Maximum in Australia, finer scale reconstructions using downscaled climate simulations

We investigate the Last Glacial Maximum climate of Australia and the equatorial tropics of the Indonesian–Australian monsoon region using the Community Earth System Model and the Weather Research and Forecasting model. Each model is used to simulate the pre-Industrial period and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and are compared to available palaeo-environmental evidence. The temperatures over Australia were cooler during the (LGM) and precipitation was generally reduced, although there were some locations of increased precipitation. Changes in the circulation dynamics explain most of the anomalies in the moisture budget, particularly over tropical latitudes. Results show that the Indonesian–Australian monsoon was active during this period, albeit with reduced precipitation. The east coast of Australia experienced increased precipitation resulting from increases in East Coast Lows. These findings are the first to use downscaled climate models of the glacial climate over Australia and provide the highest resolution simulations of the palaeoclimate. This is of particular importance over many inland parts of Australia where preservation of proxy-climatic evidence is poor or non-existent, and therefore climate modelling is the only method by which this region's past climate can be described.