摘要：In contrast to "data paleoclimatologists" who encounter experimental chal-lenges, and challenges linked to archive sampling and working in remote and/or difficult environments (e.g. Gersonde and Seidenkrantz; Steffensen; Verheyden and Genty, this issue) we give a perspective on the challenges encountered by the "computer modeling paleoclimatologist".Simulating the physical interactions between atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, and cryosphere to explain climate dy-namics is achieved through a large range of computer tools, from simple box mod-els to complex three-dimensional (3D) fully coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GCMs) (see Box 1 for some examples).Investigating the climate forcing and feedbacks that occurred during the past requires performing simulations on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of model years and due to computa-tional time this is not easily achievable with a GCM. Therefore, compromises are required in terms of model resolution, complexity, number of Earth system com-ponents and the timescale of the simula-tion
