Five centuries of Stockholm winter/spring temperatures reconstructed from documentary evidence and instrumental observations

Historical documentary sources, reflecting different port activities in Stockholm, are utilised to derive a 500-year winter/spring temperature reconstruction for the region. These documentary sources reflect sea ice conditions in the harbour inlet and those series that overlap with the instrumental...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Climatic Change
Main Authors: Leijonhufvud, Lotta, Wilson, Rob, Moberg, Anders, Soderberg, Johan, Retso, Dag, Soderlind, Ulrica
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
DAILY AIR-TEMPERATURE
16TH-CENTURY EUROPE
SUMMER TEMPERATURES
PRESSURE SERIES
PROXY DATA
WINTER
VARIABILITY
CLIMATE
DENDROCLIMATOLOGY
PRECIPITATION
Sea ice
Online Access:https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/five-centuries-of-stockholm-winterspring-temperatures-reconstructed-from-documentary-evidence-and-instrumental-observations(1c548be1-1400-4dd4-afd4-0a81eecce9c4).html
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9650-y
Description
Summary:Historical documentary sources, reflecting different port activities in Stockholm, are utilised to derive a 500-year winter/spring temperature reconstruction for the region. These documentary sources reflect sea ice conditions in the harbour inlet and those series that overlap with the instrumental data correlate well with winter/spring temperatures. By refining dendroclimatological methods, the time-series were composited to a mean series and calibrated (1756-1841; r (2) = 66%) against Stockholm January-April temperatures. Strong verification was confirmed (1842-1892; r (2) = 60%; RE/CE = 0.55). By including the instrumental data, the quantified (QUAN) reconstruction indicates that recent two decades have been the warmest period for the last 500 years. Coldest conditions occurred during the 16th/17th and early 19th centuries. An independent qualitative (QUAL) historical index was also derived for the Stockholm region. Comparison between QUAN and QUAL shows good coherence at inter-annual time-scales, but QUAL distinctly appears to lack low frequency information. Comparison is also made to other winter temperature based annually resolved records for the Baltic region. Between proxy coherence is generally good although it decreases going back in time with the 1500-1550 period being the weakest period-possibly reflecting data quality issues in the different reconstructions.

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