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Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstructed from borehole temperatures

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  • Shaopeng Huang

    (The University of Michigan)

  • Henry N. Pollack

    (The University of Michigan)

  • Po-Yu Shen

    (The University of Western Ontario)

Abstract

For an accurate assessment of the relative roles of natural variability and anthropogenic influence in the Earth's climate, reconstructions of past temperatures from the pre-industrial as well as the industrial period are essential. But instrumental records are typically available for no more than the past 150 years. Therefore reconstructions of pre-industrial climate rely principally on traditional climate proxy records1,2,3,4,5, each with particular strengths and limitations in representing climatic variability. Subsurface temperatures comprise an independent archive of past surface temperature changes that is complementary to both the instrumental record and the climate proxies. Here we use present-day temperatures in 616 boreholes from all continents except Antarctica to reconstruct century-long trends in temperatures over the past 500 years at global, hemispheric and continental scales. The results confirm the unusual warming of the twentieth century revealed by the instrumental record6, but suggest that the cumulative change over the past five centuries amounts to about 1 K, exceeding recent estimates from conventional climate proxies2,3,4,5. The strength of temperature reconstructions from boreholes lies in the detection of long-term trends, complementary to conventional climate proxies, but to obtain a complete picture of past warming, the differences between the approaches need to be investigated in detail.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaopeng Huang & Henry N. Pollack & Po-Yu Shen, 2000. "Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstructed from borehole temperatures," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6771), pages 756-758, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:403:y:2000:i:6771:d:10.1038_35001556
    DOI: 10.1038/35001556
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    Cited by:

    1. Maxim Ogurtsov & Markus Lindholm, 2006. "Uncertainties in Assessing Global Warming during the 20th Century: Disagreement between Key Data Sources," Energy & Environment, , vol. 17(5), pages 685-706, September.
    2. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata, 2012. "Climate, ecosystem resilience and the slave trade," MPRA Paper 38398, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Willie Soon & Sallie Baliunas & Craig Idso & Sherwood Idso & David R. Legates, 2003. "Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal," Energy & Environment, , vol. 14(2-3), pages 233-296, May.
    4. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata, 2015. "Climate and the slave trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 19-32.
    5. Susanne A. Benz & Kathrin Menberg & Peter Bayer & Barret L. Kurylyk, 2022. "Shallow subsurface heat recycling is a sustainable global space heating alternative," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Yoshitaka Sakata & Yuma Akeyama & Takao Katsura & Katsunori Nagano, 2023. "Evaluating Long-Term Performance of a Residential Ground-Source Heat Pump System under Climate Change in Cold and Warm Cities of Japan," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-16, March.
    7. Gregorio Moreno-Rueda & Juan Pleguezuelos & Esmeralda Alaminos, 2009. "Climate warming and activity period extension in the Mediterranean snake Malpolon monspessulanus," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 235-242, January.
    8. Ping Li & Nina Omani & Indrajeet Chaubey & Xiaomei Wei, 2017. "Evaluation of Drought Implications on Ecosystem Services: Freshwater Provisioning and Food Provisioning in the Upper Mississippi River Basin," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-23, May.
    9. Bryan Shuman, 2012. "Recent Wyoming temperature trends, their drivers, and impacts in a 14,000-year context," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 429-447, May.
    10. Luis A. Barboza & Julien Emile-Geay & Bo Li & Wan He, 2019. "Efficient Reconstructions of Common Era Climate via Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 24(3), pages 535-554, September.
    11. Luminda Gunawardhana & So Kazama & Saeki Kawagoe, 2011. "Impact of Urbanization and Climate Change on Aquifer Thermal Regimes," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(13), pages 3247-3276, October.

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