| 1. |
- Büntgen, Ulf, et al.
(författare)
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Prominent role of volcanism in Common Era climate variability and human history
- 2020
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Ingår i: Dendrochronologia. - : Elsevier BV. - 1125-7865 .- 1612-0051. ; 64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2020 Elsevier GmbH Climate reconstructions for the Common Era are compromised by the paucity of annually-resolved and absolutely-dated proxy records prior to medieval times. Where reconstructions are based on combinations of different climate archive types (of varying spatiotemporal resolution, dating uncertainty, record length and predictive skill), it is challenging to estimate past amplitude ranges, disentangle the relative roles of natural and anthropogenic forcing, or probe deeper interrelationships between climate variability and human history. Here, we compile and analyse updated versions of all the existing summer temperature sensitive tree-ring width chronologies from the Northern Hemisphere that span the entire Common Era. We apply a novel ensemble approach to reconstruct extra-tropical summer temperatures from 1 to 2010 CE, and calculate uncertainties at continental to hemispheric scales. Peak warming in the 280s, 990s and 1020s, when volcanic forcing was low, was comparable to modern conditions until 2010 CE. The lowest June–August temperature anomaly in 536 not only marks the beginning of the coldest decade, but also defines the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA). While prolonged warmth during Roman and medieval times roughly coincides with the tendency towards societal prosperity across much of the North Atlantic/European sector and East Asia, major episodes of volcanically-forced summer cooling often presaged widespread famines, plague outbreaks and political upheavals. Our study reveals a larger amplitude of spatially synchronized summer temperature variation during the first millennium of the Common Era than previously recognised.
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| 2. |
- Esper, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Eastern Mediterranean summer temperatures since 730 CE from Mt. Smolikas tree-ring densities
- 2020
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Ingår i: Climate Dynamics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0930-7575 .- 1432-0894. ; 54:3-4, s. 1367-1382
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Mediterranean has been identified as particularly vulnerable to climate change, yet a high-resolution temperature reconstruction extending back into the Medieval Warm Period is still lacking. Here we present such a record from a high-elevation site on Mt. Smolikas in northern Greece, where some of Europe's oldest trees provide evidence of warm season temperature variability back to 730 CE. The reconstruction is derived from 192 annually resolved, latewood density series from ancient living and relict Pinus heldreichii trees calibrating at r(1911-2015) = 0.73 against regional July-September (JAS) temperatures. Although the recent 1985-2014 period was the warmest 30-year interval (JAS Twrt.1961-1990 = + 0.71 degrees C) since the eleventh century, temperatures during the ninth to tenth centuries were even warmer, including the warmest reconstructed 30-year period from 876-905 (+ 0.78 degrees C). These differences between warm periods are statistically insignificant though. Several distinct cold episodes punctuate the Little Ice Age, albeit the coldest 30-year period is centered during high medieval times from 997-1026 (- 1.63 degrees C). Comparison with reconstructions from the Alps and Scandinavia shows that a similar cold episode occurred in central Europe but was absent at northern latitudes. The reconstructions also reveal different millennial-scale temperature trends (NEur = - 0.73 degrees C/1000 years, CEur = - 0.13 degrees C, SEur = + 0.23 degrees C) potentially triggered by latitudinal changes in summer insolation due to orbital forcing. These features, the opposing millennial-scale temperature trends and the medieval multi-decadal cooling recorded in Central Europe and the Mediterranean, are not well captured in state-of-the-art climate model simulations.
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| 3. |
- Klippel, Lara, et al.
(författare)
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A 1200+year reconstruction of temperature extremes for the northeastern Mediterranean region
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of Climatology. - : Wiley. - 0899-8418 .- 1097-0088. ; 39:4, s. 2336-2350
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Proxy evidence is necessary to place current temperature and hydroclimatic changes in a long-term context and to assess the full range of natural and anthropogenic climate forcings. Here, we present the first millennium-length reconstruction of late summer (August-September) temperature variability for the Mediterranean region. We compiled 132 maximum latewood density (MXD) tree-ring series of living and relict Pinus heldreichii trees from a network of four high-elevation sites in the Pindus Mountains of Greece. Forty series reach back into the first millennium and the oldest sample dates to 575 CE. At annual to decadal scales, the record correlates significantly with August-September temperatures over the Balkan Peninsula and northeastern Mediterranean (r1950-2014 = 0.71, p < 0.001). We produce two reconstructions emphasizing interannual and decadal scale variance over the past millennium. Analysis of temperature extremes reveals the coldest summers occurred in 1035, 1117, 1217, 1884 and 1959 and the coldest decades were 1061-1070 and 1811-1820. The warmest summers occurred in 1240 and 1474, and the warmest decades were 1141-1150 and 1481-1490. Comparison of this new reconstruction with MXD-based summer temperature reconstructions across Europe reveals synchronized occurrences of extreme cool summers in the northeastern Mediterranean, and an antiphase-relationship with warm summer temperatures over the British Isles and Scandinavia. This temperature dipole is related to anomalies in the latitudinal position of the North Atlantic Jet. Despite the representation of common atmospheric forcing patterns, the occurrence of warm extremes is limited to few events, suggesting potential weaknesses of MXD to record warm temperature anomalies. In addition, we acknowledge problems in the observational data to capture local temperature variability due to small scale topographic differences in this high-elevation landscape. At a broader geographical scale, the occurrence of common cold summer extremes is restricted to years with volcanically induced changes in radiative forcing.
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| 4. |
- Klippel, Lara, et al.
(författare)
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A 1286-year hydro-climate reconstruction for the Balkan Peninsula
- 2018
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Ingår i: Boreas. - : Wiley. - 0300-9483 .- 1502-3885. ; 47:4, s. 1218-1229
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a June-July drought reconstruction based on the standardized precipitation index (SPI) for the Balkan Peninsula over the period 730-2015 CE. The reconstruction is developed using a composite Pinus heldreichii tree-ring width chronology, from a high-elevation network of eight sites in the Pindus Mountains in northwest Greece, composed of living trees and relict wood. The dataset includes the ring width series of Europe's currently oldest known living tree, dendrochronologically dated to be more than 1075years old. The spatial coverage of the reconstruction is improved by using an averaged gridded SPI data target derived from a response field that is located north of the study region. Justification for this approach includes the remoteness of instrumental data, the spatial variability of precipitation and synoptic scale circulation patterns. Over the past 1286years, there have been 51 dry and 43 pluvial events. The driest year during the 1286-year-long period was 1660 and the wettest year was 1482. Comparison with shorter reconstructions and documentary evidence validates the new reconstruction, and provides additional insight into socioeconomic impacts and spatial patterns of extreme events. Fifty-nine of 72 previously undescribed extremes occurred prior to the 17th century. The new reconstruction reveals long-term changes in the number of extremes, including substantially fewer drought and pluvial events in the 20th century. Additional tests on the long-term effects of age structure, replication and covariance changes support the heteroscedastic nature of the reconstructed hydro-climatic extremes.
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| 5. |
- Klippel, Lara, et al.
(författare)
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Differing pre-industrial cooling trends between tree rings and lower-resolution temperature proxies
- 2020
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Ingår i: Climate of the Past. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1814-9324 .- 1814-9332. ; 16:2, s. 729-742
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The new PAGES2k global compilation of temperature-sensitive proxies offers an unprecedented opportunity to study regional to global trends associated with orbitally driven changes in solar irradiance over the past 2 millennia. Here, we analyze pre-industrial long-term trends from 1 to 1800 CE across the PAGES2k dataset and find that, in contrast to the gradual cooling apparent in ice core, marine, and lake sediment data, tree rings do not exhibit the same decline. To understand why tree-ring proxies lack any evidence of a significant pre-industrial cooling, we divide those data by location (high Northern Hemisphere latitudes vs. midlatitudes), seasonal response (annual vs. summer), de-trending method, and temperature sensitivity (high vs. low). We conclude that the ability of tree-ring proxies to detect pre-industrial, millennial-long cooling is not affected by latitude, seasonal sensitivity, or detrending method. Caution is advised when using multi-proxy approaches to reconstruct long-term temperature changes over the entire Common Era.
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