Reconciling reconstructed and simulated features of the winter Pacific/North American pattern in the early 19th century

Here, we illustrate the contrast between an interdecadal strong positive phase of the winter Pacific/North American pattern (PNA) in the early 19th century that is described by a PNA reconstruction based on tree rings from northwestern North America, and a slight tendency towards negative winter PNA anomalies during the same period in an ensemble of state-of-the-art coupled climate simulations.

Additionally, a pseudo-proxy investigation with the same simulation ensemble allows for assessing the robustness of PNA reconstructions using solely geophysical predictors from northwestern North America for the last millennium. The reconstructed early 19th-century positive PNA anomaly emerges as a potentially reliable feature, although the pseudo-reconstructions are subject to a number of sources of uncertainty and deficiencies highlighted especially at multidecadal and centennial timescales.