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This list of large-scale temperature reconstructions of the last 2,000 years includes climate reconstructions which have contributed significantly to the modern consensus on the temperature record of the past 2,000 years.

The instrumental temperature record only covers the last 150 years at a hemispheric or global scale, and reconstructions of earlier periods are based on climate proxies. In an early attempt to show that climate had changed, Hubert Lamb's 1965 paper generalised from temperature records of central England together with historical, botanical, and archeological evidence to produce a qualitative estimate of temperatures in the North Atlantic region. Subsequent quantitative reconstructions used statistical techniques with various climate proxies to produce larger-scale reconstructions. Tree ring proxies can give an annual resolution of extratropical regions of the northern hemisphere and can be statistically combined with other sparser proxies to produce multiproxy hemispherical or global reconstructions.

Quantitative reconstructions have consistently shown earlier temperatures below the temperature levels reached in the late 20th century. This pattern as seen in Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 was dubbed the hockey stick graph, and as of 2010 this broad conclusion was supported by more than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, with variations in how flat the pre-20th century "shaft" appears.[1]

List of reconstructions in order of publication

Cited in IPCC TAR

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR WG1) of 2001 cited the following reconstructions supporting its conclusion that the 1990s was likely to have been the warmest Northern Hemisphere decade for 1,000 years:[2]

Cited in NRC Report (North Report)

North et al. 2006 highlighted six recent reconstructions, one of which was not cited in AR4:[3]

Cited in IPCC AR4

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4 WG1) of 2007 cited the following reconstructions in support of its conclusion that the 20th century was likely to have been the warmest in the Northern Hemisphere for at least 1,300 years:[4]

Cited in IPCC AR5

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5 WG1) of 2013 examined temperature variations during the last two millennia, and cited the following reconstructions in support of its conclusion that for average annual Northern Hemisphere temperatures, "the period 1983–2012 was very likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 800 years (high confidence) and likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence)":[5]

Further reconstructions

Notes

  1. ^ Frank et al. 2010.
  2. ^ Folland et al. 2001, 2.3.2.2 Multi-proxy synthesis of recent temperature change Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ^ North et al. 2006, pp. 1–3
  4. ^ Jansen et al. 2007, Section 6.6: The Last 2,000 Years Archived 2015-03-28 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ Masson-Delmotte et al. 2013, Chapter 5, Executive Summary p. 286, and Section 5.3.5: Temperature Variations During the Last 2000 Years pp. 409–410 Archived 2017-12-06 at the Wayback Machine.

References in chronological sequence

1915

  • Huntington, E. (1915), Civilization and Climate, p. 341

1965

1979

1989

1990

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

  • Overpeck, J.; Hughen, K.; Hardy, R.; Bradley, R.; et al. (14 November 1997), "Arctic Environmental Change of the Last Four Centuries", Science, 278 (5341): 1251, Bibcode:1997Sci...278.1251O, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.492.5724, doi:10.1126/science.278.5341.1251
  • Fisher, D. A. (1997), "High resolution reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the last few centuries: using regional average tree ring, ice core and historical annual time series", Paper U32C-7 in Supplement to EOS. Transactions

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

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