A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years

2013/03/07 by Shaun A. Marcott, Jeremy D. Shakun, Peter U. Clark +1 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Tree-ring climate responses #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Deglaciation #Holocene #Proxy (statistics) #Global warming #Climatology #Physical geography #Climate change #Little ice age #Paleoclimatology #Surface air temperature #Global temperature #Global cooling #Geology #Oceanography #Environmental science #Geography

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1228026

openalex publication_date 2013/03/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

Surface temperature reconstructions of the past 1500 years suggest that recent warming is unprecedented in that time. Here we provide a broader perspective by reconstructing regional and global temperature anomalies for the past 11,300 years from 73 globally distributed records. Early Holocene (10,000 to 5000 years ago) warmth is followed by ~0.7°C cooling through the middle to late Holocene (<5000 years ago), culminating in the coolest temperatures of the Holocene during the Little Ice Age, about 200 years ago. This cooling is largely associated with ~2°C change in the North Atlantic. Current global temperatures of the past decade have not yet exceeded peak interglacial values but are warmer than during ~75% of the Holocene temperature history. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model projections for 2100 exceed the full distribution of Holocene temperature under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios.

Citations

• Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: A new data set from 1850
• Collapse and rapid resumption of Atlantic meridional circulation linked to deglacial climate changes
• Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years
• Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability
• A 110,000-Yr Record of Explosive Volcanism from the GISP2 (Greenland) Ice Core
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• Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures: Examination of criticisms based on the nature and processing of proxy climate evidence
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Cited by

• Rethinking the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau
• Hockey stick graph (global temperature) [wikipedia]

Related

• Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly
• A late Quaternary climate reconstruction based on borehole heat flux data, borehole temperature data, and the instrumental record
• Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia
• A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra‐tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millennia
• Holocene climate variability