NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Xoplaki 2005, Luterbacher 2004 European Seasonal Temperature Reconstructions

STUDY NOTES: Seasonal averaged European land (25W-40E; 35N-70N) absolute surface air temperature 1500-2004. Data from 1500-1900 are reconstructions. Reference for Winter and Summer data: Luterbacher et al. 2004 Reference for Spring and Autumn data: Xoplaki et al. 2005 References for Annual data: Xoplaki et al. 2005 and Luterbacher et al. 2004 Data from 1901-2002 are taken from: Mitchell and Jones 2005 Data from 2003-2004 stem from: Hansen et al. 2001 Note that the winter and summer reconstructed values are slightly different from Luterbacher et al. (2004) for earlier centuries because the reconstructions have been redone (i) fitting to Mitchell and Jones (2005) observational data rather than New et al. (2000), (ii) using only instrumental temperature series and temperature-sensitive documentary and natural proxies, and (iii) including a few more instrumental series compared to Luterbacher et al. (2004). The files in the /europe-seasonal-files directory located with this readme file contain seasonal data for a given year. They are named with the year and then a two-letter code to indicate the season. su = summer au = autumn wi = winter sp = spring The first row of data in the files is the northernmost row(70N) with data values going from West to East in each row. The rows then proceed from North to South.
ABSTRACT SUPPLIED BY ORIGINATOR: Multiproxy reconstructions of monthly and seasonal surface temperature fields for Europe back to 1500 show that the late 20th- and early 21st-century European climate is very likely (>95% confidence level) warmer than that of any time during the past 500 years. This agrees with findings for the entire Northern Hemisphere. European winter average temperatures during the period 1500 to 1900 were reduced by ~0.5°C (0.25°C for annual mean temperatures) compared to the 20th century. Summer temperatures did not experience systematic century-scale cooling relative to present conditions. The coldest European winter was 1708/1709; 2003 was by far the hottest summer.