Climate change between the mid and late Holocene in the northern high latitudes : Part I: Survey of temperature and precipitation proxy data

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: Sundqvist, Hanna S., Zhang, Qiong, Moberg, Anders, Holmgren, Karin, Körnich, Heiner, Nilsson, Johan, Brattström, Gudrun
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Institutionen för naturgeografi och kvartärgeologi (INK) 2010
• Subjects: climate change; Holocene; proxy data; northern high latitudes; Climate Research; Klimatforskning; Arctic; Climate change; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-43497; https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-6-739-2010

We undertake a study in two parts, where theoverall aim is to quantitatively compare results from climateproxy data with results from several climate model simulationsfrom the Paleoclimate Modelling IntercomparisonProject for the mid-Holocene period and the pre-industrial,conditions for the pan-arctic region, north of 60 N. In thisfirst paper, we survey the available published local temperatureand precipitation proxy records. We also discuss andquantifiy some uncertainties in the estimated difference inclimate between the two periods as recorded in the availabledata. The spatial distribution of available published localproxies has a marked geographical bias towards land areassurrounding the North Atlantic sector, especially Fennoscandia.The majority of the reconstructions are terrestrial, andthere is a large over-representation towards summer temperaturerecords. The available reconstructions indicate that thenorthern high latitudes were warmer in both summer, winterand the in annual mean temperature at the mid-Holocene(6000 BP±500 yrs) compared to the pre-industrial period(1500AD±500 yrs). For usage in the model-data comparisons(in Part 1), we estimate the calibration uncertainty andalso the internal variability in the proxy records, to derive acombined minimum uncertainty in the reconstructed temperaturechange between the two periods. Often, the calibrationuncertainty alone, at a certain site, exceeds the actual reconstructedclimate change at the site level. In high-density regions,however, neighbouring records can be merged into aCorrespondence to: H. S. Sundqvist([e-mail])composite record to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Thechallenge of producing reliable inferred climate reconstructionsfor the Holocene cannot be underestimated, consideringthe fact that the estimated temperature and precipitationfluctuations during this period are in magnitude similar to, orlower than, the uncertainties the reconstructions. We advocatea more widespread practice of archiving proxy recordsas most of ...