Log in

Comparative Analysis of Spectra of the 2000-year Reconstructions of Average Surface Air Temperature in the Northern Hemisphere

  • Published:
Russian Meteorology and Hydrology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The spectral composition of temporal variations in the Northern Hemisphere mean surface air temperature is estimated and compared in 2000-year paleoclimatic reconstructions. Continuous wavelet transforms of these reconstructions are used for the stable estimation of energy spectra. It is found that low-frequency parts of the spectra (the periods of temperature variations of more than 100 years) based on such high-resolution paleoclimatic indicators as tree rings, corals, etc., are similar to the spectrum of white noise, that is never observed in nature. This seems unrealistic. The famous reconstruction called “Hockey Stick” is among such unrealistic reconstructions. Reconstructions based not only on high-resolution but also on low-resolution indicators seem to be more realistic, since the low-frequency parts of their spectra have the pattern of red noise. They include the “Boomerang” reconstruction showing that some warm periods close to the present-day one were observed in the past.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Germany)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  1. M. I. Budyko, “The Effect of Solar Radiation Variations on the Climate of the Earth,” Tellus, No. 5, 21 (1969).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. B. Christiansen and F. C. Ljungqvist, “Challenges and Perspectives for Large-scale Temperature Reconstructions of the Past Two Millennia,” Rev. Geophys., 55 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. B. Christiansen and F. C. Ljungqvist, “The Extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere Temperature in the Last Two Millennia: Reconstructions of Low-frequency Variability,” Clim. Past, 8 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. T. J. Crowley and T. Lowery, “How Warm was the Medieval Warm Period?”, Ambio, 29 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. J. Esper, E. R. Cook, and F. H. Schweingruber, “Low-frequency Signals in Long Tree-ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability,” Science, 295 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. P. Huybers and W. Curry, “Links between Annual, Milankovitch and Continuum Temperature Variability,” Nature, 441 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. P. D. Jones and M. E. Mann, “Climate over Past Millennia,” Rev. Geophys., 42 (2004).

  8. R. S. Lindzen and Y.-S. Choi, “On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications,” Asia-Pacific J. Atmos. Sci., No. 4, 47 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. C. Loehle, “A 2000-year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-treering Proxies,” Energ. Environ., No. 7+8, 18 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. M. E. Mann, R. S. Bradley, and M. K. Hughes, “Global-scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing over the Past Six Centuries,” Nature, 392 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. M. E. Mann, R. S. Bradley, and M. K. Hughes, “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures during the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations,” Geophys. Res. Lett., 26 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. M. E. Mann, Z. Zhang, S. Rutherford, R. S. Bradley, M. K. Hughes, D. Shindell, C. Ammann, G. Faluvegi, and F. Ni, “Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly,” Science, 326 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. M. E. Mann, Z. Zhang, M. K. Hughes, R. S. Bradley, S. K. Miller, S. Rutherford, and F. Ni, “Proxy-based Reconstructions of Hemispheric and Global Surface Temperature Variations over the Past Two Millennia,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 105 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick, “Hockey Sticks, Principal Components, and Spurious Significance,” Geophys. Res. Lett., 32 (2005).

  15. A. Moberg, R. Mohammad, and T. Mauritsen, “Analysis of the Moberg et al. (2005) Hemispheric Temperature Reconstruction,” Climate Dynamics, 31 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. A. Moberg, D. M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N. M. Datsenko, and W. Karlen, “Highly Variable Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Reconstructed from Low- and High-resolution Proxy Data,” Nature, 433 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. National Research Council Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years (National Acad. Press, D. C., Washington, 2006).

  18. PAGES 2k Consortium, “Consistent Multidecadal Variability in Global Temperature Reconstructions and Simulations over the Common Era,” Nature Geosci., 12 (2019).

  19. K. E. Trenberth, “Changes in the Flow of Energy through the Earth’s Climate System,” Physics and Society, No. 2, 38 (2009).

  20. K. E. Trenberth, J. T. Fasullo, K. von Schuckmann, and L. Cheng, “Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources,” J. Climate, 29 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. R. Wilson, K. Anchukaitis, R. R. Briffa, U. Buntgen, E. Cook, R. D’Arrigo, N. Davi, J. Esper, D. Frank, B. Gunnarson, G. Hegerl, S. Helama, S. Klesse, P. J. Krusic, H. W. Linderholm, V. Myglan, T. J. Osborn, M. Rydval, L. Schneider, A. Schurer, G. Wiles, P. Zhang, and E. Zorita, “Last Millennium Northern Hemisphere Summer Temperatures from Tree Rings: Part I: The Long Term Context,” Quat. Sci. Rev., 134 (2016).

  22. B. Yang, D. M. Sonechkin, N. M. Datsenko, J. Liu, and C. Qin, “Establishment of a 4650-year-long Eigenvalue Chronology Based on Tree-ring Cores from Qilian Junipers (Juniperus Przewalskii Kom.) in Western China,” Dendrochronologia, 46 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to N. M. Datsenko.

Additional information

Translated from Meteorologiya i Gidrologiya, 2021, No. 10, pp. 5-13. https://doi.org/10.52002/0130-2906-2021-10-5-13.

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Datsenko, N.M., Sonechkin, D.M., Yang, B. et al. Comparative Analysis of Spectra of the 2000-year Reconstructions of Average Surface Air Temperature in the Northern Hemisphere. Russ. Meteorol. Hydrol. 46, 651–657 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068373921100010

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068373921100010

Keywords

Navigation