Tropical Climates At The Last Glacial Maximum

The LGM Tropical Terrestrial Data Synthesis (Farrera et al., 1999) contains quantitative reconstructions of mean temperature of the coldest month (MTCO) and mean annual ground temperature (MAT), and qualitative reconstructions of plant-available moisture (PAM) and runoff (equivalent to precipitation minus evaptranspiration, P-E) from radiocarbon-dated terrestrial sites between 32° N and 33° S with records for the last glacial maximum (defined as 18,000±1000 yr B.P. on the radiocarbon time scale, equivalent to 21,000 yr B.P. on the calendar time scale). The data set was explicitly compiled to provide an evaluation data set for LGM simulations. The dataset combines multiple indicators of quantitative changes in land surface temperature (pollen and plant macrofossil records of mean temperature of the coldest month = MTCO, and noble gas and speleothem records of mean annual temperature = MAT) and qualitative indicators of moisture balance parameters (pollen and plant macrofossil records of PAM and lake status records of P-E). The use of multiple indicators allows the consistency of the temperature and moisture balance reconstructions to be evaluated. The original publication lists all tropical sites with climate estimates - many of these sites were unsuitable for making quantitative reconstructions or were extremely poorly dated, and so do not appear on the maps. The complete list of sites is available on request. The LGM Tropical Terrestrial Data Synthesis has records for 85 sites with records of PAM, 42 sites with records of P-E, 64 sites with record for temperature at the site elevation, and 34 sites with records of temperature reduced to sea level.