Abstract: The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is about 21000 calendar years before present, with climate conditions significantly different from the present. Some numerical experiments for this period have been performed in China in recent several years. It is revealed that the LGM was generally characterized by lowered surface temperature relative to the present over China inland, decreased precipitation in the central and eastern China, intensified East Asian winter monsoon and weakened East Asian summer monsoon. Moreover, based on the boundary conditions recommended by the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), it is further indicated that vegetation feedback in East Asia, possible ice sheet over the Tibetan Plateau, and sea surface temperature reconstruction in the western Pacific different from the PMIP data source can induce additional climate effects, which partly reconcile model-paleodata discrepancies as displayed by the standard PMIP simulations.

Key words: Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), modelling, East Asia