Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years.
BACKGROUND: The lack of instrumental data before the mid-19th-century limits our understanding of present warming trends. In the absence of direct measurements, we used proxies that are natural or historical archives recording past climatic changes. A gridded reconstruction of spring-summer temperat...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:ce5cdc43544e4b8cb6c47fd885d0ab93 2023-05-15T16:39:22+02:00 Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. Joel Guiot Christophe Corona ESCARSEL members 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009972 https://doaj.org/article/ce5cdc43544e4b8cb6c47fd885d0ab93 EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2848609?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009972 https://doaj.org/article/ce5cdc43544e4b8cb6c47fd885d0ab93 PLoS ONE, Vol 5, Iss 4, p e9972 (2010) Medicine R Science Q article 2010 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009972 2022-12-31T14:29:55Z BACKGROUND: The lack of instrumental data before the mid-19th-century limits our understanding of present warming trends. In the absence of direct measurements, we used proxies that are natural or historical archives recording past climatic changes. A gridded reconstruction of spring-summer temperature was produced for Europe based on tree-rings, documentaries, pollen assemblages and ice cores. The majority of proxy series have an annual resolution. For a better inference of long-term climate variation, they were completed by low-resolution data (decadal or more), mostly on pollen and ice-core data. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: An original spectral analog method was devised to deal with this heterogeneous dataset, and to preserve long-term variations and the variability of temperature series. So we can replace the recent climate changes in a broader context of the past 1400 years. This preservation is possible because the method is not based on a calibration (regression) but on similarities between assemblages of proxies. The reconstruction of the April-September temperatures was validated with a Jack-knife technique. It was also compared to other spatially gridded temperature reconstructions, literature data, and glacier advance and retreat curves. We also attempted to relate the spatial distribution of European temperature anomalies to known solar and volcanic forcings. CONCLUSIONS: We found that our results were accurate back to 750. Cold periods prior to the 20(th) century can be explained partly by low solar activity and/or high volcanic activity. The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) could be correlated to higher solar activity. During the 20(th) century, however only anthropogenic forcing can explain the exceptionally high temperature rise. Warm periods of the Middle Age were spatially more heterogeneous than last decades, and then locally it could have been warmer. However, at the continental scale, the last decades were clearly warmer than any period of the last 1400 years. The heterogeneity of MWP versus ... Article in Journal/Newspaper ice core Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PLoS ONE 5 4 e9972 |
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Medicine R Science Q Joel Guiot Christophe Corona ESCARSEL members Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
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Medicine R Science Q |
description |
BACKGROUND: The lack of instrumental data before the mid-19th-century limits our understanding of present warming trends. In the absence of direct measurements, we used proxies that are natural or historical archives recording past climatic changes. A gridded reconstruction of spring-summer temperature was produced for Europe based on tree-rings, documentaries, pollen assemblages and ice cores. The majority of proxy series have an annual resolution. For a better inference of long-term climate variation, they were completed by low-resolution data (decadal or more), mostly on pollen and ice-core data. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: An original spectral analog method was devised to deal with this heterogeneous dataset, and to preserve long-term variations and the variability of temperature series. So we can replace the recent climate changes in a broader context of the past 1400 years. This preservation is possible because the method is not based on a calibration (regression) but on similarities between assemblages of proxies. The reconstruction of the April-September temperatures was validated with a Jack-knife technique. It was also compared to other spatially gridded temperature reconstructions, literature data, and glacier advance and retreat curves. We also attempted to relate the spatial distribution of European temperature anomalies to known solar and volcanic forcings. CONCLUSIONS: We found that our results were accurate back to 750. Cold periods prior to the 20(th) century can be explained partly by low solar activity and/or high volcanic activity. The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) could be correlated to higher solar activity. During the 20(th) century, however only anthropogenic forcing can explain the exceptionally high temperature rise. Warm periods of the Middle Age were spatially more heterogeneous than last decades, and then locally it could have been warmer. However, at the continental scale, the last decades were clearly warmer than any period of the last 1400 years. The heterogeneity of MWP versus ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Joel Guiot Christophe Corona ESCARSEL members |
author_facet |
Joel Guiot Christophe Corona ESCARSEL members |
author_sort |
Joel Guiot |
title |
Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
title_short |
Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
title_full |
Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
title_fullStr |
Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Growing season temperatures in Europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
title_sort |
growing season temperatures in europe and climate forcings over the past 1400 years. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009972 https://doaj.org/article/ce5cdc43544e4b8cb6c47fd885d0ab93 |
genre |
ice core |
genre_facet |
ice core |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 5, Iss 4, p e9972 (2010) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2848609?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009972 https://doaj.org/article/ce5cdc43544e4b8cb6c47fd885d0ab93 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009972 |
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PLoS ONE |
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5 |
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e9972 |
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