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Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia

Citation

Ahmed, M and Anchukaitis, KJ and Asrat, A and Borgaonkar, HP and Braida, M and Buckley, BM and Buntgen, U and Chase, BM and Christie, DA and Cook, ER and Curran, MAJ and Diaz, HF and Esper, J and Fan, Z-X and Gaire, NP and Ge, Q and Gergis, J and Gonzalez-Rouco, JF and Goosse, H and Grab, SW and Graham, N and Graham, R and Grosjean, M and Hanhijarvi, ST and Kaufman, DS and Kiefer, T and Kimura, K and Korhola, AA and Krusic, PJ and Lara, A and Lezine, A-M and Ljungqvist, FC and Lorrey, AM and Luterbacher, J and Masson-Delmotte, V and McCarroll, D and McConnell, JR and McKay, NP and Morales, MS and Moy, AD and Mulvaney, R and Mundo, IA and Nakatsuka, T and Nash, DJ and Neukom, R and Nicholson, SE and Oerter, H and Palmer, JG and Phipps, SJ and Prieto, MR and Rivera, A and Sano, M and Severi, M and Shanahan, TM and Shao, X and Shi, F and Sigl, M and Smerdon, JE and Solomina, ON and Steig, EJ and Stenni, B and Thamban, M and Trouet, V and Turney, CSM and Umer, M and van Ommen, TD and Verschuren, D and Viau, AE and Villalba, R and Vinther, BM and Von Gunten, L and Wagner, S and Wahl, ER and Wanner, H and Werner, JP and White, JWC and Yasue, K and Zorita, E, PAGES 2k Consortium, Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia, Nature Geoscience, 6, (5) pp. 339-346. ISSN 1752-0894 (2013) [Refereed Article]

Copyright Statement

Copyright 2013 Macmillan Publishers

DOI: doi:10.1038/ngeo1797

Abstract

Past global climate changes had strong regional expression. To elucidate their spatio-temporal pattern, we reconstructed past temperatures for seven continental-scale regions during the past one to two millennia. The most coherent feature in nearly all of the regional temperature reconstructions is a long-term cooling trend, which ended late in the nineteenth century. At multi-decadal to centennial scales, temperature variability shows distinctly different regional patterns, with more similarity within each hemisphere than between them. There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age, but all reconstructions show generally cold conditions between ad 1580 and 1880, punctuated in some regions by warm decades during the eighteenth century. The transition to these colder conditions occurred earlier in the Arctic, Europe and Asia than in North America or the Southern Hemisphere regions. Recent warming reversed the long-term cooling; during the period ad 1971-2000, the area-weighted average reconstructed temperature was higher than any other time in nearly 1,400 years.

Item Details

Item Type:Refereed Article
Keywords:Palaeoclimate, palaeoceanography, Climate science
Research Division:Earth Sciences
Research Group:Physical geography and environmental geoscience
Research Field:Palaeoclimatology
Objective Division:Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:Understanding climate change
Objective Field:Climate variability (excl. social impacts)
UTAS Author:Curran, MAJ (Dr Mark Curran)
UTAS Author:Moy, AD (Dr Andrew Moy)
UTAS Author:Phipps, SJ (Dr Steven Phipps)
UTAS Author:van Ommen, TD (Dr Tas van Ommen)
ID Code:87555
Year Published:2013
Web of Science® Times Cited:701
Deposited By:CRC-Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems
Deposited On:2013-11-22
Last Modified:2017-10-30
Downloads:1 View Download Statistics

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