Scotland 800-Year Reconstruction Shows Temperatures Were As Warm Or Warmer In The Past!

Scotland climate over past 800 years: Pre-industrial warm phases provide answers

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(German text translated/edited by P Gosselin)

How do today’s temperatures fit into the climate-historical context?

This is one of the main tasks of today’s climate research. A group of researchers led by Milos Rydval have presented a reconstruction of summer temperatures in Scotland over the past 800 years. The results were produced from tree ring examinations.

Surprisingly, the scientists found that the current level of heat in Scotland had been reached and even exceeded several times in the past. These heat spells occurred in the 14th, 16th, and 18th centuries and each spanned over several decades (Figure 1). In between there were cold phases that fit well into the context of the Little Ice Age.

What follows is the abstract of the study published in November 2017 in the journal Climate Dynamics:

Reconstructing 800 years of summer temperatures in Scotland from tree rings
This study presents a summer temperature reconstruction using Scots pine tree-ring chronologies for Scotland allowing the placement of current regional temperature changes in a longer-term context. ‘Living-tree’ chronologies were extended using ‘subfossil’ samples extracted from nearshore lake sediments resulting in a composite chronology >800 years in length. The North Cairngorms (NCAIRN) reconstruction was developed from a set of composite blue intensity high-pass and ring-width low-pass filtered chronologies with a range of detrending and disturbance correction procedures. Calibration against July–August mean temperature explains 56.4% of the instrumental data variance over 1866–2009 and is well verified. Spatial correlations reveal strong coherence with temperatures over the British Isles, parts of western Europe, southern Scandinavia and northern parts of the Iberian Peninsula. NCAIRN suggests that the recent summer-time warming in Scotland is likely not unique when compared to multi-decadal warm periods observed in the 1300s, 1500s, and 1730s, although trends before the mid-sixteenth century should be interpreted with some caution due to greater uncertainty. Prominent cold periods were identified from the sixteenth century until the early 1800s—agreeing with the so-called Little Ice Age observed in other tree-ring reconstructions from Europe—with the 1690s identified as the coldest decade in the record. The reconstruction shows a significant cooling response 1 year following volcanic eruptions although this result is sensitive to the datasets used to identify such events. In fact, the extreme cold (and warm) years observed in NCAIRN appear more related to internal forcing of the summer North Atlantic Oscillation.”

Figure 1: Reconstruction of summertime July-August temperatures in Scotland over the past 800 years, based on tree rings. Source: Rydval et al. 2017.

13 responses to “Scotland 800-Year Reconstruction Shows Temperatures Were As Warm Or Warmer In The Past!”

  1. Bitter&twisted

    It’s tree rings, so probably a proxy for rainfall.
    Just too many unquantifiable variables.
    But a lot better work than Mann’s Hockey Stick rubbish.

    1. spike55

      Trees are a likely to be a good proxy for CO2 levels as well.

  2. SebastianH

    Any words on the new IPCC SR15 report?

    http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

    Fake news? Waiting for a “software expert” or “veteran journalist” to comment on it?

    1. spike55

      It shreds itself.

      A lead balloon that makes ridiculous statements that can never be fulfulled and are based on nonsense science.

      Its a LEFTIST UN-DRIVEN POLITICAL STATEMENT..

      Nothing more

      Comprendi !!!!

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/07/josh-the-new-ipcc-report-is-a-work-of-art/

      Please produce the empirical evidence that human CO2 has caused ANY warming, seb.

      You have REFUSED to do so for a LONG, LONG time.

      Why would that be. 😉

      SURLY it must be somewhere in the IPCC report.. right ????

      Maybe if you read it with other than a CLOSED and GULLIBLE brain-hosed mind, you can find the answers to these two questions ???

      Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

      Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

      or NOT !!

      1. SebastianH

        Of course, the all the others are wrong/leftist/whatever BS reply again. And you don’t think you are the troll? 😉

        1. Newminster

          Seb — for once in your life, just answer the ******* question. Or admit you can’t. OK?

          1. SebastianH

            Newminster, I replied to these two question often enough now. The master troll keeps repeating them over and over as if he doesn’t accept my replies. If that is the case, is he expecting a different answer next time?

            But talking about questions, for once in his life, spike55 could answer mine about how much energy a table requires to hold up a 50 kg weight for 1 hour vs. 2 hours. Does the amount change? He is consistently dodging this and I know exactly why 😉

          2. spike55

            How much energy does it take YOU to hold that 50kg weight for 1hr vs 2hrs, seb?

            Where does the “sturdy” table get the force from to counter the weight force of the 50kg mass, seb ?

            You are constantly dodging these.. and I know why.

            Do you REALLY pretend that a person has to continually counter the weight force of the 50kg mass, but the table doesn’t ????

            WOW. !! Seb fantasy la-la-land fizzics, yet again.

            And we are all STILL WAITING for you to answer these questions.

            Two questions seb, you have run away from , ALWAYS.. you have NEVER attempted to answer them with any rational science, just mindless yapping. (new question added)

            Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

            Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

            Q3. Where does the bottom 10m of the atmosphere get the force from to CONTINUALLY counter the weight force of the many km of air above it?

          3. spike55

            “how much energy a table requires to hold up a 50 kg weight for 1 hour vs. 2 hours. Does the amount change?”

            No, that energy is required CONSTANTLY to counter the CONSTANT weight-force of the 50kg.

            Just like when you are holding the 50kg mass, seb.. you have to CONTINUALLY counter the weight-force.

            Do you DENY that that requires energy ??????

            REALLY !!!

            Do you DENY that the table MUST apply a CONTINUAL upward force of the 50kg mass, seb ?

            Where does the table get that force from seb ?

            Answer the question.. stop squirming

            You need to break your cycle of ignorance.

      2. spike55

        ROFLMAO, nope, not even the exalted IPCC report can help seb passed the headless chook stage of cackling EVASION of two simple questions.

        Do you really DENY that the IPCC is driven by a POLITICAL agenda..

        So FUNNY. 🙂

        Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

        Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

  3. Scotland 800-Year Reconstruction Shows Temperatures Were As Warm Or Warmer In The Past! | Un hobby...

    […] Dr. S. Lüning & Prof. F. Vahrenholtz, in […]

  4. Bitter&twisted

    DNCWTRT 😷☠️☠️☠️

  5. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #331 | Watts Up With That?

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