Dynamical reconstruction of Southern Ocean and Antarctic climate variability since 1700

Understanding long-term climate variability in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere is critical due to the key role of the Southern Ocean in the global climate system. However, sparse observations (in space and time) coupled with strong internal variability limit our ability to interpret the origin of recent changes, and their longer-term context. Here we present a dynamically consistent reconstruction of the Antarctic atmosphere and Southern Ocean from 1700 to 2023. We first use data assimilation (DA)-based Antarctic atmospheric reanalyses that combine instrumental observations (1958–2023) and paleoclimate proxies (1700–2000) with Earth System Models to reconstruct key surface climate fields. We then drive a global ocean–sea-ice model with this atmospheric reanalysis to simulate historical ocean conditions, including temperature, salinity, currents, and sea-ice-related variables at 1° resolution. This reconstruction provides the first long-term physically consistent dataset of Antarctic atmosphere–ocean variability, suitable for studying low-frequency climate variability, evaluating climate models, and potentially driving regional atmospheric and ocean models as well as ice sheet models.