A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature- sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850–2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high- and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python

A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era.

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850-2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high- and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python

Applications of proxy system modeling in high resolution paleoclimatology

AbstractA proxy system model may be defined as the complete set of forward and mechanistic processes by which the response of a sensor to environmental forcing is recorded and subsequently observed in a material archive. Proxy system modeling complements and sharpens signal interpretations based solely on statistical analyses and transformations; provides the basis for observing network optimization, hypothesis testing, and data-model comparisons for uncertainty estimation; and may be incorporated as weak but mechanistically-plausible constraints into paleoclimatic reconstruction algorithms. Following a review illustrating these applications, we recommend future research pathways, including development of intermediate proxy system models for important sensors, archives, and observations; linking proxy system models to climate system models; hypothesis development and evaluation; more realistic multi-archive, multi-observation network design; examination of proxy system behavior under extreme conditions; and generalized modeling of the total uncertainty in paleoclimate reconstructions derived from paleo-observations

Data descriptor: a global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850-2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high-and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python. (TABLE) Since the pioneering work of D'Arrigo and Jacoby1-3, as well as Mann et al. 4,5, temperature reconstructions of the Common Era have become a key component of climate assessments6-9. Such reconstructions depend strongly on the composition of the underlying network of climate proxies10, and it is therefore critical for the climate community to have access to a community-vetted, quality-controlled database of temperature-sensitive records stored in a self-describing format. The Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k consortium, a self-organized, international group of experts, recently assembled such a database, and used it to reconstruct surface temperature over continental-scale regions11 (hereafter, ` PAGES2k-2013'). This data descriptor presents version 2.0.0 of the PAGES2k proxy temperature database (Data Citation 1). It augments the PAGES2k-2013 collection of terrestrial records with marine records assembled by the Ocean2k working group at centennial12 and annual13 time scales. In addition to these previously published data compilations, this version includes substantially more records, extensive new metadata, and validation. Furthermore, the selection criteria for records included in this version are applied more uniformly and transparently across regions, resulting in a more cohesive data product. This data descriptor describes the contents of the database, the criteria for inclusion, and quantifies the relation of each record with instrumental temperature. In addition, the paleotemperature time series are summarized as composites to highlight the most salient decadal-to centennial-scale behaviour of the dataset and check mutual consistency between paleoclimate archives. We provide extensive Matlab code to probe the database-processing, filtering and aggregating it in various ways to investigate temperature variability over the Common Era. The unique approach to data stewardship and code-sharing employed here is designed to enable an unprecedented scale of investigation of the temperature history of the Common Era, by the scientific community and citizen-scientists alike

Detection of Human Influence on a New, Validated 1500-Year Temperature Reconstruction

Climate records over the last millennium place the twentieth-century warming in a longer historical context. Reconstructions of millennial temperatures show a wide range of variability, raising questions about the reliability of currently available reconstruction techniques and the uniqueness of late-twentieth-century warming. A calibration method is suggested that avoids the loss of low-frequency variance. A new reconstruction using this method shows substantial variability over the last 1500 yr. This record is consistent with independent temperature change estimates from borehole geothermal records, compared over the same spatial and temporal domain. The record is also broadly consistent with other recent reconstructions that attempt to fully recover low-frequency climate variability in their central estimate. High variability in reconstructions does not hamper the detection of greenhouse gas-induced climate change, since a substantial fraction of the variance in these reconstructions from the beginning of the analysis in the late thirteenth century to the end of the records can be attributed to external forcing. Results from a detection and attribution analysis show that greenhouse warming is detectable in all analyzed high-variance reconstructions (with the possible exception of one ending in 1925), and that about a third of the warming in the first half of the twentieth century can be attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The estimated magnitude of the anthropogenic signal is consistent with most of the warming in the second half of the twentieth century being anthropogenic

Data Descriptor: A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850-2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high-and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python.(TABLE)Since the pioneering work of D'Arrigo and Jacoby1-3, as well as Mann et al. 4,5, temperature reconstructions of the Common Era have become a key component of climate assessments6-9. Such reconstructions depend strongly on the composition of the underlying network of climate proxies10, and it is therefore critical for the climate community to have access to a community-vetted, quality-controlled database of temperature-sensitive records stored in a self-describing format. The Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k consortium, a self-organized, international group of experts, recently assembled such a database, and used it to reconstruct surface temperature over continental-scale regions11 (hereafter, ` PAGES2k-2013').This data descriptor presents version 2.0.0 of the PAGES2k proxy temperature database (Data Citation 1). It augments the PAGES2k-2013 collection of terrestrial records with marine records assembled by the Ocean2k working group at centennial12 and annual13 time scales. In addition to these previously published data compilations, this version includes substantially more records, extensive new metadata, and validation. Furthermore, the selection criteria for records included in this version are applied more uniformly and transparently across regions, resulting in a more cohesive data product.This data descriptor describes the contents of the database, the criteria for inclusion, and quantifies the relation of each record with instrumental temperature. In addition, the paleotemperature time series are summarized as composites to highlight the most salient decadal-to centennial-scale behaviour of the dataset and check mutual consistency between paleoclimate archives. We provide extensive Matlab code to probe the database-processing, filtering and aggregating it in various ways to investigate temperature variability over the Common Era. The unique approach to data stewardship and code-sharing employed here is designed to enable an unprecedented scale of investigation of the temperature history of the Common Era, by the scientific community and citizen-scientists alike

Реконструкция температуры деятельного слоя ледника на Западном плато Эльбруса за 1930–2008 гг.

The reconstruction of changes in the temperature of the base of the active layer (at a depth of 10 m) of the glacier on the Western plateau of Elbrus for the period 1930–2008 was performed. The temperature dynamics at this depth generally corresponds to the average annual changes in the air temperature at the height of the plateau (5100 m), since seasonal temperature fluctuations take place in the active layer. The initial data for the mathematical model are: 1) the temperature measurements in a borehole with a depth of 181.8 m, drilled on the plateau (2009); 2) vertical profile of the density of the firn/ice thickness; 3) vertical profile of the advection rate (ice speed), recently obtained from the analysis of the ice core (2015). Temperature changes are reconstructed by solving an incorrect inverse problem for the 1D heat equation with coefficients depending on the depth. The following conditions are added to the heat conduction equation: 1) the initial one that is calculated stationary temperature profile related to the beginning of the reconstruction period; 2) the boundary condition at the glacier bed – calculated permanent geothermal heat flux; 3) the condition of redefinition, i.e. distribution of the temperature measured in the borehole at the end of the reconstruction period. Solving the inverse problem, we obtain a previously unknown boundary condition on the surface which is the temperature of the active layer base as a function of time. The depth is reckoned from the base of the active layer. The method used for solving the inverse problem is the Tikhonov regularization, implemented numerically as an iterative procedure. The boundary condition on the surface (the restored function of the temperature changes) was found as a finite sum of harmonics with indeterminate coefficients. To improve the accuracy of the reconstruction, we used harmonic frequencies obtained from another indirect climate indicator – the tree-ring chronology for the Central Caucasus. Wavelet analysis was used to extract characteristic frequencies from the dendrochronological data. Our reconstruction determined the temperature changes within range from –17.7 to –15.3 °C for the investigated period. The reconstruction data were compared with independent polynomial smoothed temperature series from the studied region: with ENCEP/ENCAR reanalysis (significant correlation coefficient 0.76), as well as with temperature measurements at the Terskol (0.53) and Teberda weather stations. The reconstruction clearly reflects the main climate trends of the twentieth century: a warmer period in the 1940s, a colder period in the 1960s and 1980s, and extreme warming around 2000.На основе результатов измерения температуры в скважине глубиной 181,8 м, пробуренной в толще льда, материалов анализа ледникового керна и древесно-кольцевой хронологии выяснено, что температура основания деятельного слоя ледника (примерно 10 м ниже поверхности, где затухают межсезонные колебания температуры) за исследуемый период менялась в диапазоне от –17,7 до –15,3 °С, и это полностью соответствует изменению температуры воздуха в средней тропосфере в районе Эльбруса, оценённой по данным реанализа

New Methods for Inferring Past Climatic Changes from Underground Temperatures

In this thesis new methods have been developed for the recovery of past surface temperature variations from underground temperature-depth profiles. This has been undertaken from a Bayesian standpoint with an emphasis on model comparison, which allows differently parameterised inverse models (inferred past temperature histories) to be automatically constructed and compared in the light of the data and the prescribed prior information. In the first contribution a new method for inverting temperature-depth profiles is presented which relies on trans-dimensional Bayesian sampling. The temperature histories are parameterised in terms of a variable number of linear segments over time. Relying on the natural parsimony of Bayesian inference, whereby simpler models which can adequately explain the data are preferred, the complexity or roughness of the temperature histories can be determined without the need for explicit a priori smoothing. This method therefore allows a more objective inference of the past temperature changes. These concepts are extended to the spatial domain in the following chapter using the method of Bayesian partition modelling. This seeks to find the posterior distribution of the number and spatial distribution of independent temperature histories given a spatially distributed ensemble of temperature-depth profiles. The results from application to 23 real boreholes in the UK are discussed in detail and show a clear preference for 8 or 9 independent (and mostly contrasting) temperature histories. It is thus concluded that the majority of these data cannot be considered as reliable sources of palaeoclimate reconstruction. A 3D finite element heat transfer forward model is developed in the latter part of the thesis, and is used to simulate underground temperatures. This forward model is linked to the first of the two Bayesian inverse methods described above. The effect of the reduction in average ground surface temperature with altitude is included in the forward model and inversion of the resultant profiles using a 1D forward model is shown to give significant discrepancies in the inferred temperature histories. Finally the inversion results from the Bayesian formulation are compared with those using a conventional gradient descent method. The thesis concludes with some possibilities for future research in this field which builds upon the work presented herein