中世纪暖期气候研究综述

 中世纪暖期是过去2 000 a以来最为重要的一个时期。该温暖事件是否具有全球性特征,其变化是否具有同步性,温度和降水变化的幅度如何?依据大量的研究成果，虽然对中世纪暖期的气候变化不甚清楚，我们仍然认为这一事件很可能是全球性的,而非区域性的。各种证据表明该时期的温暖程度不及20世纪，而且中世纪暖期表现出不连续的特征，降水也存在区域差异，这主要是因为降水和温度有着不同的响应自然驱动的物理特性。大量重建和模拟显示,诸如太阳辐射和火山作用的自然因素可以解释这一时期的大部分气候变化特征，但气候系统内部的相互作用是不能被忽视的。因此,将内部因素和外部因素联合起来揭示气候变化的机制就显得非常重要。

An Overview of Studies on Medieval Warm Period

The Medieval Warm Period is a crucial epoch during last two millennia. In this review a number of lines of evidence are considered in order to evaluate whether this warm event was regional or global, whether it was uniform climatically or synchronized, how warm was the period, precipitation variation and what caused this climate event. Based on large number of research, we hold that this epoch was most likely global rather than regional though we have only a sparse picture of this epoch. The balance of evidence may do point that the period was not warmer than 20th century. Besides, all reconstruction supports an unsustained Medieval warm period. As mentioned precipitation variation, different areas have different wet or dry condition. Precipitation and temperature do have distinct physical characteristics responded the natural forcing. In the end, many reconstructions and simulations indicate that natural factor, such as solar radiation and volcanism can explain most of climatic changes observed during this episode, however the interaction of climatic system can not be ignored. Consequently, it is very important to joint the effect of external and internal factors in decoding the mechanism of climate change. We hope that the following works could be paid more attention: updating old and developing new proxy data, promoting the ways of reconstruction and keeping a scientific attitude toward next research.