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High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects

Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK, p.jones{at}uea.ac.uk

K.R. Briffa

Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

T.J. Osborn

Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

J.M. Lough

Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville MC, QLD 4810, Australia

T.D. van Ommen

Australian Antarctic Division & ACE CRC, Private Bag 80, Hobart Tasmania 7001, Australia

B.M. Vinther

Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

J. Luterbacher

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) and NCCR Climate and Institute of Geography, Climatology and Meteorology, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland

E.R. Wahl

Division of Environmental Studies and Geology, Alfred University, NOAA-Paleoclimatology, Boulder CO 80305, USA

F.W. Zwiers

Climate Research Division, Environment Canada, 4905 Dufferin Street, Toronto Ont. M3H 5T4, Canada

M.E. Mann

Earth System Science Center, Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, 523 Walker Building, University Park PA 16802, USA

G.A. Schmidt

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York NY 10025, USA

C.M. Ammann

Climate & Global Dynamics Division, NCAR, Boulder CO 80307-3000, USA

B.M. Buckley

Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York NY 10964, USA

K.M. Cobb

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, 311 Ferst Drive, Atlanta GA 30332-0340, USA

J. Esper

Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland

H. Goosse

Institut dAstronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaître, Université Catholique de Louvain, Chemin du cyclotron 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

N. Graham

Hydrologic Research Center, 12780 High Bluff Drive, ú, La Jolla CA 92130-3017, USA

E. Jansen

Department of Geology, University of Bergen, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Allegaten 55, NO-5007 Bergen, Norway

T. Kiefer

PAGES International Project Office, Sulgeneckstrasse 38, 3007 Bern, Switzerland

C. Kull

Advisory Body on Climate Change (OcCC), Schwarztorstrasse 9, CH-3007 Bern, Switzerland

M. Küttel

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) and NCCR Climate and Institute of Geography, Climatology and Meteorology, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland

E. Mosley-Thompson

Department of Geography and Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, 108 Scott Hall, 1090 Carmack Road, Columbus OH 43210, USA

J.T. Overpeck

Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, University of Arizona, 715 N. Park Avenue, 2nd Floor, Tucson AZ 85721, USA

N. Riedwyl

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) and NCCR Climate and Institute of Geography, Climatology and Meteorology, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland

M. Schulz

MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and Faculty of Geosciences, Universität Bremen, Postfach 330 440, D-28334 Bremen, Germany

A.W. Tudhope

School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK

R. Villalba

Argentinean Institute for Snow, Ice and Environmental Sciences, IANIGLA-CRICYT, Casilla de Correo 330, Mendoza 5500, Argentina

H. Wanner

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) and NCCR Climate and Institute of Geography, Climatology and Meteorology, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland

E. Wolff

Physical Sciences Division, British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 OET, UK

E. Xoplaki

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) and NCCR Climate and Institute of Geography, Climatology and Meteorology, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland

This review of late-Holocene palaeoclimatology represents the results from a PAGES/CLIVAR Intersection Panel meeting that took place in June 2006. The review is in three parts: the principal high-resolution proxy disciplines (trees, corals, ice cores and documentary evidence), emphasizing current issues in their use for climate reconstruction; the various approaches that have been adopted to combine multiple climate proxy records to provide estimates of past annual-to-decadal timescale Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures and other climate variables, such as large-scale circulation indices; and the forcing histories used in climate model simulations of the past millennium. We discuss the need to develop a framework through which current and new approaches to interpreting these proxy data may be rigorously assessed using pseudo-proxies derived from climate model runs, where the `answer' is known. The article concludes with a list of recommendations. First, more raw proxy data are required from the diverse disciplines and from more locations, as well as replication, for all proxy sources, of the basic raw measurements to improve absolute dating, and to better distinguish the proxy climate signal from noise. Second, more effort is required to improve the understanding of what individual proxies respond to, supported by more site measurements and process studies. These activities should also be mindful of the correlation structure of instrumental data, indicating which adjacent proxy records ought to be in agreement and which not. Third, large-scale climate reconstructions should be attempted using a wide variety of techniques, emphasizing those for which quantified errors can be estimated at specified timescales. Fourth, a greater use of climate model simulations is needed to guide the choice of reconstruction techniques (the pseudo-proxy concept) and possibly help determine where, given limited resources, future sampling should be concentrated.

Key Words: Palaeoclimatology • high-resolution • last millennium • tree rings • dendroclimatology • chronology • uncertainty • corals • ice-cores • speleothems • documentary evidence • instrumental records • varves • borehole temperature • marine sediments • composite plus scaling • CPS • climate field reconstruction • CFR • pseudo-proxy approach • time series • climate forcing.

The Holocene, Vol. 19, No. 1, 3-49 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0959683608098952


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