Abstract. For the detection of climate change, not only the magnitude of a trend signal is of significance. An essential issue is the time period required by the trend to be detectable in the first place. An illustrative measure for this is time of emergence (ToE), that is, the point in time when a signal finally emerges from the background noise of natural variability. We investigate the ToE of trend signals in different biogeochemical and physical surface variables utilizing a multimodel ensemble comprising simulations of 17 Earth system models (ESMs). We find that signals in ocean biogeochemical variables emerge on much shorter timescales than the physical variable sea surface temperature (SST). The ToE patterns of pCO 2 and pH are spatially very similar to DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon), yet the trends emerge much faster -after roughly 12 yr for the majority of the global ocean area, compared to between 10 and 30 yr for DIC. ToE of 45-90 yr are even larger for SST. In general, the background noise is of higher importance in determining ToE than the strength of the trend signal. In areas with high natural variability, even strong trends both in the physical climate and carbon cycle system are masked by variability over decadal timescales. In contrast to the trend, natural variability is affected by the seasonal cycle. This has important implications for observations, since it implies that intra-annual variability could question the representativeness of irregularly sampled seasonal measurements for the entire year and, thus, the interpretation of observed trends.

Abstract. Under the protocols of phase 3 of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, a number of simulations were produced that provide a range of potential climate evolutions from the last millennium to the end of the current century. Here, we present the first simulation with the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which includes an interactive carbon cycle, that covers the last millennium. The simulation is continued to the end of the twenty-first century. Besides state-of-the-art forcing reconstructions, we apply a modified reconstruction of total solar irradiance to shed light on the issue of forcing uncertainty in the context of the last millennium. Nevertheless, we find that structural uncertainties between different models can still dominate over forcing uncertainty for quantities such as hemispheric temperatures or the land and ocean carbon cycle response. Compared to other model simulations, we find forced decadal-scale variability to occur mainly after volcanic eruptions, while during other periods internal variability masks potentially forced signals and calls for larger ensembles in paleoclimate modeling studies. At the same time, we were not able to attribute millennial temperature trends to orbital forcing, as has been suggested recently. The climate-carbon-cycle sensitivity in CESM during the last millennium is estimated to be between 1.0 and 2.1 ppm • C −1 . However, the dependence of this sensitivity on the exact time period and scale illustrates the prevailing challenge of deriving robust constraints on this quantity from paleoclimate proxies. In particular, the response of the land carbon cycle to volcanic forcing shows fundamental differences between different models. In CESM the tropical land dictates the response to volcanoes, with a distinct behavior for large and moderate eruptions. Under anthropogenic emissions, global land and ocean carbon uptake rates emerge from the envelope of interannual natural variability by about year 1947 and 1877, respectively, as simulated for the last millennium.

Abstract. Measurements of the stable carbon isotope ratio (δ 13 C) on annual tree rings offer new opportunities to evaluate mechanisms of variations in photosynthesis and stomatal conductance under changing CO 2 and climate conditions, especially in conjunction with process-based biogeochemical model simulations. The isotopic discrimination is indicative of the ratio between the CO 2 partial pressure in the intercellular cavities and the atmosphere (c i /c a ) and of the ratio of assimilation to stomatal conductance, termed intrinsic wateruse efficiency (iWUE). We performed isotope-enabled simulations over the industrial period with the land biosphere module (CLM4.5) of the Community Earth System Model and the Land Surface Processes and Exchanges (LPX-Bern) dynamic global vegetation model. Results for C3 tree species show good agreement with a global compilation of δ 13 C measurements on leaves, though modeled 13 C discrimination by C3 trees is smaller in arid regions than measured. A compilation of 76 tree-ring records, mainly from Europe, boreal Asia, and western North America, suggests on average small 20th century changes in isotopic discrimination and in c i /c a and an increase in iWUE of about 27 % since 1900. LPXBern results match these century-scale reconstructions, supporting the idea that the physiology of stomata has evolved to optimize trade-offs between carbon gain by assimilation and water loss by transpiration. In contrast, CLM4.5 simulates an increase in discrimination and in turn a change in iWUE that is almost twice as large as that revealed by the tree-ring data. Factorial simulations show that these changes are mainly in response to rising atmospheric CO 2 . The results suggest that the downregulation of c i /c a and of photosynthesis by nitrogen limitation is possibly too strong in the standard setup of CLM4.5 or that there may be problems associated with the implementation of conductance, assimilation, and related adjustment processes on long-term environmental changes.