Free Access
Comment on “On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th century warmth”
Willie Soon,
Sallie Baliunas,
David Legates,
Willie Soon
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Search for more papers by this authorSallie Baliunas
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Search for more papers by this authorDavid Legates
Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware, Newark
Search for more papers by this authorWillie Soon,
Sallie Baliunas,
David Legates,
Willie Soon
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Search for more papers by this authorSallie Baliunas
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Search for more papers by this authorDavid Legates
Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware, Newark
Search for more papers by this authorComment to DOI:10.1029/2003EO270003
Abstract
We write in response to the Forum article by Mann et al. (Eos, 8 July 2003;“M03”), noting first two points of apparent agreement with our work [Soon and Baliunas, 2003; Soon et al., 2003;“SB03”]:
(1) Studies of climatic and environmental changes (including temperature) on hemispheric or global scales over time periods of millennia based on paleoclimate proxies must contend with significant uncertainties.
References
- Arnfield, A. J., Two decades of urban climate research: A review of turbulence, exchanges of energy and water, and the urban heat island, Int. J. Climatology, 23, 1–26, 2003.
- Barber, V. A., G. P. Juday, and B. P. Finney, Reduced growth of Alaskan white spruce in the twentieth century from temperature-induced drought stress, Nature, 405, 668–673, 2000.
- Briffa, K. R., F. H. Schweingruber, P. D. Jones, J. J. Osborn, I. C. Harris, S. G. Shiyatov, E. A. Vaganov, and H. Grudd, Trees tell of past climates: But are they speaking less clearly today?, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 353, 65–73, 1998.
- Chase, T. N., Pielke Sr., R. A., Herman, B., and Zeng, X., On the likelihood of rapidly warming surface temperatures unaccompanied by strong warming in the free troposphere in observations and climate model simulations, Climate Research, in press.
- Christy, J. R., D. E. Parker, S. J. Brown, L. Macadam, M. Stendel, and W. B. Norris, Differential trends in tropical sea surface and atmospheric temperatures since 1979, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 183–186, 2001.
- DeGaetano, A., and R. J. Allen, Trends in twentiethcentury temperature extremes across the United States, J. Climate, 75, 3188–3205, 2002.
- Feng, X., Trends in intrinsic water-use efficiency of natural trees for the past 100–200 years, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 63, 1891–1903, 1999.
- Graybill, D. A, and S. B. Idso, Detecting the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment in tree-ring chronologies, Glob. BioGeoChem. Cyc., 7, 81–95, 1993.
- Huang, S., H. N. Pollack, and PYShen, Late Quaternary temperature changes seen in the worldwide continental heat flow measurements, Geophys. Res. Lett, 24, 1947–1950, 1997.
- Huang, S., H. N. Pollack, and P. Y. Shen, Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstruced from borehole temperatures, Nature, 403, 756–758, 2000.
- Jacoby, G. C., and R. D. D'Arrigo, Tree-ring width and density evidence for climatic and potential forest change in Alaska, Glob. Biogeochem. Cyc, 9, 227–234, 1995.
- Jacoby, G. C., N. V. Lovelius, O. I. Shumilov, O. M. Raspopov, J. M. Karbainov, and D. C. Frank, Longterm temperature trends and tree growth in the Taymir region of Northern Siberia, Quat. Res., 53, 312–318, 2000.
- Kalnay, E., and M. Cai, Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate, Nature, 425, 528–531, 2003.
- Knapp, P. A., P. T. S oulé, and H. D. Grissino-Mayer, Postdrought growth responses of western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis var. occidentalis) in central Oregon, Geophys. Res. Lett, 28, 2657–2660, 2001.
- Mann, M. E., R. S. Bradley, and M. K. Hughes, Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations, Geophys. Res. Lett, 26, 759–762, 1999.
- Mann, M. E., et al., On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th century warmth, Eos, Trans. AGU, 84, 256–257, 2003.
- Mann, M. E., and P. D. Jones, Global surface temperatures over the past two millenia, Geophys. Res. Lett, 3015182010.1029/2003/GL017814, 2003.
- Pielke Sr., R. A., T. Stohlgren, L. Schell, W. Parton, N. Doesken, K. Redmond, J. Moeny, T. McKee, and T. G. F. Kittel, Problems in evaluating regional and local trends in temperature: An example from eastern Colorado, USA, Int. J. Climatology, 22, 421–434, 2002.
- Soon, W., and S. Baliunas, Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years, Climate Research, 25, 89–110, 2003.
- Soon, W., S. Baliunas, C. Idso, S. Idso, and D. R. Legates, Reconstructing climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years: A reappraisal, Energy and Ena, 14, 233–296, 2003.
10.1260/095830503765184619 Google Scholar
