PAGES 2k Consortium, Moinuddin Ahmed, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Asfawossen Asrat, Hemant P. Borgaonkar, Martina Braida, Brendan M. Buckley, Ulf Büntgen, Brian M. Chase, Duncan A. Christie et al

Published date April 21, 2013

Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia

  • Reconstructs past temperatures for seven continental-scale regions during the past one to two millennia
  • Finds that 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
  • Finds 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
  • Finds that 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