The importance of ship log data: reconstructing North Atlantic, European and Mediterranean sea level pressure fields back to 1750

Local to regional climate anomalies are to a large extent determined by the state of the atmospheric circulation. The knowledge of large-scale sea level pressure (SLP) variations in former times is therefore crucial when addressing past climate changes across Europe and the Mediterranean. However, currently available SLP reconstructions lack data from the ocean, particularly in the pre-1850 period. Here we present a new statistically-derived 5° × 5° resolved gridded seasonal SLP dataset covering the eastern North Atlantic, Europe and the Mediterranean area (40°W–50°E; 20°N–70°N) back to 1750 using terrestrial instrumental pressure series and marine wind information from ship logbooks. For the period 1750–1850, the new SLP reconstruction provides a more accurate representation of the strength of the winter westerlies as well as the location and variability of the Azores High than currently available multiproxy pressure field reconstructions. These findings strongly support the potential of ship logbooks as an important source to determine past circulation variations especially for the pre-1850 period. This new dataset can be further used for dynamical studies relating large-scale atmospheric circulation to temperature and precipitation variability over the Mediterranean and Eurasia, for the comparison with outputs from GCMs as well as for detection and attribution studies.     

Past millennial solar forcing magnitude

A set of global climate model simulations for the last thousand years developed by the Max Planck Institute is compared with paleoclimate proxy data and instrumental data, focusing on surface temperatures for land areas between 30° and 75°N. The proxy data are obtained from six previously published Northern Hemispheric-scale temperature reconstructions, here re-calibrated for consistency, which are compared with the simulations utilizing a newly developed statistical framework for ranking several competing simulations by means of their statistical distance against past climate variations. The climate model simulations are driven by either “low” or “high” solar forcing amplitudes (0.1 and 0.25 % smaller total solar irradiance in the Maunder Minimum period compared to the present) in addition to several other known climate forcings of importance. Our results indicate that the high solar forcing amplitude results in a poorer match with the hemispheric-scale temperature reconstructions and lends stronger statistical support for the low-amplitude solar forcing. However, results are likely conditional upon the sensitivity of the climate model used and strongly dependent on the choice of temperature reconstruction, hence a greater consensus is needed regarding the reconstruction of past temperatures as this currently provides a great source of uncertainty.     

Five hundred years of gridded high-resolution precipitation reconstructions over Europe and the connection to large-scale circulation

We present seasonal precipitation reconstructions for European land areas (30°W to 40°E/30–71°N; given on a 0.5°×0.5° resolved grid) covering the period 1500–1900 together with gridded reanalysis from 1901 to 2000 (Mitchell and Jones 2005). Principal component regression techniques were applied to develop this dataset. A large variety of long instrumental precipitation series, precipitation indices based on documentary evidence and natural proxies (tree-ring chronologies, ice cores, corals and a speleothem) that are sensitive to precipitation signals were used as predictors. Transfer functions were derived over the 1901–1983 calibration period and applied to 1500–1900 in order to reconstruct the large-scale precipitation fields over Europe. The performance (quality estimation based on unresolved variance within the calibration period) of the reconstructions varies over centuries, seasons and space. Highest reconstructive skill was found for winter over central Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Precipitation variability over the last half millennium reveals both large interannual and decadal fluctuations. Applying running correlations, we found major non-stationarities in the relation between large-scale circulation and regional precipitation. For several periods during the last 500 years, we identified key atmospheric modes for southern Spain/northern Morocco and central Europe as representations of two precipitation regimes. Using scaled composite analysis, we show that precipitation extremes over central Europe and southern Spain are linked to distinct pressure patterns. Due to its high spatial and temporal resolution, this dataset allows detailed studies of regional precipitation variability for all seasons, impact studies on different time and space scales, comparisons with high-resolution climate models as well as analysis of connections with regional temperature reconstructions. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at and is accessible for authorized users.     

Projections of high resolution climate changes for South Korea using multiple-regional climate models based on four RCP scenarios. Part 1: surface air temperature

We projected surface air temperature changes over South Korea during the mid (2026-2050) and late (2076-2100) 21st century against the current climate (1981-2005) using the simulation results from five regional climate models (RCMs) driven by Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model, version 2, coupled with the Atmosphere- Ocean (HadGEM2-AO), and two ensemble methods (equal weighted averaging, weighted averaging based on Taylor’s skill score) under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. In general, the five RCM ensembles captured the spatial and seasonal variations, and probability distribution of temperature over South Korea reasonably compared to observation. They particularly showed a good performance in simulating annual temperature range compared to HadGEM2-AO. In future simulation, the temperature over South Korea will increase significantly for all scenarios and seasons. Stronger warming trends are projected in the late 21st century than in the mid-21st century, in particular under RCP8.5. The five RCM ensembles projected that temperature changes for the mid/late 21st century relative to the current climate are +1.54°C/+1.92°C for RCP2.6, +1.68°C/+2.91°C for RCP4.5, +1.17°C/+3.11°C for RCP6.0, and +1.75°C/+4.73°C for RCP8.5. Compared to the temperature projection of HadGEM2-AO, the five RCM ensembles projected smaller increases in temperature for all RCP scenarios and seasons. The inter-RCM spread is proportional to the simulation period (i.e., larger in the late-21st than mid-21st century) and significantly greater (about four times) in winter than summer for all RCP scenarios. Therefore, the modeled predictions of temperature increases during the late 21st century, particularly for winter temperatures, should be used with caution.     

Trans-Tasman Sea climate variability since ad 1740 inferred from middle to high latitude tree-ring data

The limited length and spatial coverage of instrumental climate data for many areas of the Southern Hemisphere impedes the study of atmosphere-ocean dynamics prior to the past century. Such analyses are important for understanding interannual to decadal variation of the Southern Hemisphere circulation and whether recent changes are related to anthropogenic effects rather than natural variability. We use a middle- to high-latitude tree-ring width data set (from Tasmania, New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego) to reconstruct sea-level pressure (SLP) variability spanning the Tasman Sea and vicinity since ad 1740. The variables reconstructed are austral summer (November–March) SLP for Hobart, Tasmania (43°S, 147°E) and the Chatham Islands, New Zealand (44°S, 177°E), as well as a meridional circulation index (Hobart-Chatham Islands index) which measures the pressure gradient between these two stations. The three reconstructions are well verified statistically and capture between 40 and 48% of the variance in the SLP data. The instrumental and estimated SLP show similar spatial patterns of correlation with the sea surface temperature (SST) field for the Pacific. Statistically significant (above 95% level) 3–3.5 year spectral peaks are identified in the three reconstructions using multitaper spectral analysis, and a significant 4–5 year peak is found in both the Chatham Islands and Hobart-Chatham Islands SLP reconstructions. These two modes are within the bandwidth of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Although very speculative, they may also correspond to a proposed Antarctic circumpolar wave of SLP, SST, wind and sea-ice extent, believed to play a key role in atmosphere-ocean circulation for the Southern Hemisphere. Received: 30 November 1998 / Accepted: 13 December 1999     

Volcanoes and ENSO in millennium simulations: global impacts and regional reconstructions in East Asia

The impacts and cooperative effects of volcanic eruptions and ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) are analyzed in a millennium simulation for 800–2005 AD using the earth system model (ESM) ECHAM5/MPIOM/JSBACH subject to anthropogenic and natural forcings. The simulation comprises two ensembles, a first with weak (E1, five members) and a second with strong (E2, three members) variability total solar irradiance. In the analysis, the 21 most intense eruptions are selected in each ensemble member. Volcanoes with neutral ENSO states during two preceding winters cause a global cooling in the year after eruptions up to ?2.5°C. The nonsignificant positive values in the tropical Pacific Ocean indicate an El Niño-like warming. In the winter after an eruption, warming is mainly found in the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea in E2 warming extends to Siberia and central Asia. The recovery times for the volcano-induced cooling (average for 31 eruptions) vary globally between 1 and 12 years. There is no significant increase of El Niño events after volcanic eruptions in both ensembles. The simulated temperature and the drought indices are compared with corresponding reconstructions in East Asia. Volcanoes cause a dramatic cooling in west China (?2°C) and a drought in East China during the year after the eruption. The reconstructions show similar cooling patterns with smaller magnitudes and confirm the dryness in East China. Without volcanoes, El Niño events reduce summer precipitation in the North, while South China becomes wetter; La Niña events cause opposite effects. El Niño events in the winters after eruptions compensate the cooling caused by volcanoes in most regions of China (consistent with reconstructions), while La Niña events intensify the cooling (up to ?2.5°C). The simulated and reconstructed drought indices show tripole patterns which are altered by El Niño events. The simulated impact of the Tambora eruption in 1815, which caused the “year without summer” of 1816 in Europe and North America and led to coldness and famines in the Chinese province Yunnan, depends crucially on the ENSO state of the coupled model. A comparison with reconstructed El Niño events shows a moderate cool climate with wet (in the south) and extreme dry anomalies (in the north) persisting for several years.     

Reconstruction of Summer Temperatures in Interior Alaska from Tree-Ring Proxies: Evidence for Changing Synoptic Climate Regimes

Maximum latewood density and δ ¹³C discrimination of Interior Alaska white spruce were used to reconstruct summer (May through August) temperature at Fairbanks for the period 1800–1996, one of the first high-resolution reconstructions for this region. This combination of latewood density and δ ¹³C discrimination explains 59.9% of the variance in summer temperature during the period of record 1906–1996. The 200-yr. reconstruction is characterized by 7 decadal-scale regimes. Regime changes are indicated at 1816, 1834, 1879, 1916, 1937, and 1974, are abrupt, and appear to be the result of synoptic scale climate changes. The mean of summer temperature for the period of reconstruction (1800–1996) was 13.49 °C. During the period of instrument record (1903–1996) the mean of summer temperature was 13.31 °C for both the reconstruction and the recorded data. The coldest interval was 1916–1937 (12.62 ° C) and the warmest was 1974–1996 (14.23 °C) for the recorded data. The reconstruction differs from records of northern hemisphere temperatures over this period, especially because of Interior Alaska warm periods reconstructed from 1834 to 1851 (14.24 °C) and from 1862 to 1879 (14.19 °C) and because of the cool period in the early part of the 20th century (1917–1974). We show additional tree ring data that support our reconstruction of these warm periods. Alternate hypotheses involving autogenic effect of tree growth on the site, altered tree sensitivity, or novel combinations of temperature and precipitation were explored and while they cannot be ruled out as contributors to the anomalously warm 19th century reconstruction, they were not supported by available data. White spruce radial growth is highly correlated with reconstructed summer temperature, and temperature appears to be a reliable index of carbon uptake in this system.     

Ice-sheet growth and high-latitudes sea-surface temperature

The response of the LLN 2-D climate model to the insolation and CO₂ forcings during the Eemian interglacial is compared to reconstructions obtained from deep-sea cores drilled in the Norwegian Sea and in the North Atlantic. Both reconstructions and modeling results show a decrease of sea-surface temperature (SST) in the higher latitudes (70–75 °N zonal belt for the model and the Norwegian Sea for the proxy records), associated with a more moderate cooling at lower latitudes (50–55 °N and North Atlantic), at the middle of isotopic substage 5e, several millenia before the beginning of continental ice-sheet growth. Such a comparison between the simulated SST and ice volume of the Northern Hemisphere has been extended to the whole last glacial-interglacial cycle. The influence of the insolation forcing on SST and the shortcomings of the model due to its zonal character are discussed. Received: 6 July 1995/Accepted: 19 December 1995     

Climatic changes in Eurasia and Africa at the last glacial maximum and mid-Holocene: reconstruction from pollen data using inverse vegetation modelling

In order to improve the reliability of climate reconstruction, especially the climatologies outside the modern observed climate space, an improved inverse vegetation model using a recent version of BIOME4 has been designed to quantitatively reconstruct past climates, based on pollen biome scores from the BIOME6000 project. The method has been validated with surface pollen spectra from Eurasia and Africa, and applied to palaeoclimate reconstruction. At 6 cal ka BP (calendar years), the climate was generally wetter than today in southern Europe and northern Africa, especially in the summer. Winter temperatures were higher (1–5°C) than present in southern Scandinavia, northeastern Europe, and southern Africa, but cooler in southern Eurasia and in tropical Africa, especially in Mediterranean regions. Summer temperatures were generally higher than today in most of Eurasia and Africa, with a significant warming from ∼3 to 5°C over northwestern and southern Europe, southern Africa, and eastern Africa. In contrast, summers were 1–3°C cooler than present in the Mediterranean lowlands and in a band from the eastern Black Sea to Siberia. At 21 cal ka BP, a marked hydrological change can be seen in the tropical zone, where annual precipitation was ∼200–1,000 mm/year lower than today in equatorial East Africa compared to the present. A robust inverse relationship is shown between precipitation change and elevation in Africa. This relationship indicates that precipitation likely had an important role in controlling equilibrium-line altitudes (ELA) changes in the tropics during the LGM period. In Eurasia, hydrological decreases follow a longitudinal gradient from Europe to Siberia. Winter temperatures were ∼10–17°C lower than today in Eurasia with a more significant decrease in northern regions. In Africa, winter temperature was ∼10–15°C lower than present in the south, while it was only reduced by ∼0–3°C in the tropical zone. Comparison of palaeoclimate reconstructions using LGM and modern CO₂ concentrations reveals that the effect of CO₂ on pollen-based LGM reconstructions differs by vegetation type. Reconstructions for pollen sites in steppic vegetation in Europe show warmer winter temperatures under LGM CO₂ concentrations than under modern concentrations, and reconstructions for sites in xerophytic woods/scrub in tropical high altitude regions of Africa are wetter for LGM CO₂ concentrations than for modern concentrations, because our reconstructions account for decreased plant water use efficiency.     

Reconstruction of Quaternary temperature fields by dynamically consistent smoothing

Conventional methods of palaeoclimate reconstruction provide estimates of climatic parameters using proxy data which have originated from individual sites. These reconstructions yield information on the local environment but only limited information on spatial scales that are required for model-data intercomparisons. We present here a new approach that connects these different scales by an upscaling of the local palaeoinformation together with a dynamically consistent spatial smoothing. A probabilistic data-based method for local reconstructions is combined with a dynamic constraint on the reconstructed climate parameter which stabilises the reconstruction on the target scale. The variational analysis leads to climatological fields being optimised with respect to the proxy data and to the prescribed dynamics in a statistically consistent way. This method allows a probabilistic approach of quality control of the palaeodata in terms of their spatial consistency and homogeneity and for an estimation of reconstruction errors. The method was applied to palaeobotanical data to reconstruct near-surface temperature fields constrained by simple linear dynamics. An approximate approach was used to estimate the magnitude of reconstruction errors in terms of standard deviations. Reconstructed January and July mean temperature of the early Eemian (∼ 125,000 years bp) have errors with a median value of about 1.8°C in January and about 1.1°C in July. Reconstructions across Europe show positive temperature anomalies for Scandinavia and near the East coast of the Baltic Sea. In contrast, early Eemian temperatures were apparently quite similar to those found today in Central Europe, as no drastic differences were reconstructed between the Eemian and modern (1961–1990) climate. This implies somewhat stronger temperature gradients in the Eemian than are observed today. Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

The Little Ice Age climate of New Zealand reconstructed from Southern Alps cirque glaciers: a synoptic type approach

Little Ice Age (LIA) austral summer temperature anomalies were derived from palaeoequilibrium line altitudes at 22 cirque glacier sites across the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Modern analog seasons with temperature anomalies akin to the LIA reconstructions were selected, and then applied in a sampling of high-resolution gridded New Zealand climate data and global reanalysis data to generate LIA climate composites at local, regional and hemispheric scales. The composite anomaly patterns assist in improving our understanding of atmospheric circulation contributions to the LIA climate state, allow an interrogation of synoptic type frequency changes for the LIA relative to present, and provide a hemispheric context of the past conditions in New Zealand. An LIA summer temperature anomaly of ?0.56 °C (±0.29 °C) for the Southern Alps based on palaeo-equilibrium lines compares well with local tree-ring reconstructions of austral summer temperature. Reconstructed geopotential height at 1,000 hPa (z1000) suggests enhanced southwesterly flow across New Zealand occurred during the LIA to generate the terrestrial temperature anomalies. The mean atmospheric circulation pattern for summer resulted from a crucial reduction of the ‘HSE’-blocking synoptic type (highs over and to the west of NZ; largely settled conditions) and increases in both the ‘T’- and ‘SW’-trough synoptic types (lows passing over NZ; enhanced southerly and southwesterly flow) relative to normal. Associated land-based temperature and precipitation anomalies suggest both colder- and wetter-than-normal conditions were a pervasive component of the base climate state across New Zealand during the LIA, as were colder-than-normal Tasman Sea surface temperatures. Proxy temperature and circulation evidence were used to corroborate the spatially heterogeneous Southern Hemisphere composite z1000 and sea surface temperature patterns generated in this study. A comparison of the composites to climate mode archetypes suggests LIA summer climate and atmospheric circulation over New Zealand was driven by increased frequency of weak El Niño-Modoki in the tropical Pacific and negative Southern Annular Mode activity.     

Mediterranean drought fluctuation during the last 500 years based on tree-ring data

A 2.5 × 2.5° gridded summer (April–September) drought reconstruction over the larger Mediterranean land area (32.5°/47.5°N, 10°W/50°E; 152 grid points) is described, based on a network of 165 tree-ring series. The drought index used is the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index, and the period considered is 1500–2000. The reconstruction technique combines an analogue technique for the estimation of missing tree-ring data with an artificial neural network for optimal non-linear calibration, including a bootstrap error assessment. Tests were carried out on the various sources of error in the reconstructions. Errors related to the temporal variations of the number of proxies were tested by comparing four reconstructions calibrated with four different sized regressor datasets, representing the decrease in the number of available proxies over time. Errors related to the heterogeneous spatial density of predictors were tested using pseudo-proxies, provided by the global climate model ECHO-G. Finally the errors related to the imperfect climate signal recorded by tree-ring series were tested by adding white noise to the pseudo-proxies. Reconstructions pass standard cross-validation tests. Nevertheless tests using pseudo-proxies show that the reconstructions are less good in areas where proxies are rare, but that the average reconstruction curve is robust. Finally, the noise added to proxies, which is by definition a high frequency component, has a major effect on the low frequency signal, but not on the medium frequencies. The comparison of the low frequency trends of our mean reconstruction and the GCM simulation indicates that the detrending method used is able to preserve the long-term variations of reconstructed PDSI. The results also highlight similar multi-decadal PDSI variations in the central and western parts of the Mediterranean basin and less clear low frequency changes in the east. The sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth centuries are characterized by marked dry episodes in the west similar to those observed in the end of the twentieth century. In contrast, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Little Ice Age) are characterized by dominant wet periods. In the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin the observed strong drought period of the end of the twentieth century seems to be the strongest of the last 500 years.     

Surface temperature in NW Europe during the Younger Dryas: AGCM simulation compared with temperature reconstructions

 During the Younger Dryas (YD) the climate in NW Europe returned to near-glacial conditions. To improve our understanding of climate variability during this cold interval, we compare an AGCM simulation of this climate, performed with the ECHAM model, with temperature reconstructions for NW Europe based on geological and paleoecological records. Maps for the mean winter, summer and annual temperature are presented. The simulated winters are consistent with reconstructions in the northern part of the study area. A strong deviation is noted in Ireland and England, where the simulation is too warm by at least 10 °C. It appears that the N Atlantic was cooler than prescribed in the YD simulation, including a southward expansion of the sea-ice margin. The comparison for the summer shows a too warm continental Europe in the simulation. Supposedly, these anomalously warm conditions are caused by the AGCM’s response to the prescribed increased summer insolation. The region of maximum summer cooling is similar in both the simulation and reconstruction, i.e., S Sweden. We suggest that this is due to the local cooling effect of the Scandinavian ice sheet. Compared to the present climate a considerable increase of the annual temperature range is inferred, especially for regions close to the Atlantic Ocean. Received: 20 November 1996 / Accepted: 8 July 1997     

Impacts of land surface and sea surface temperatures on the onset date of the South China Sea summer monsoon

The present study analyzes the differences in spatial and temporal variations of surface temperatures between early and late onset years of the South China Sea summer monsoon (SCSSM). It is found that when the land surface temperature north of 40^oN is lower (higher) and the sea surface temperature over the South China Sea-western North Pacific (SCS-WNP) is higher (lower) in winter, the onset of the SCSSM begins earlier (later). When the land surface temperature north of 40^oN is higher (lower) and the sea surface temperature over the SCS-WNP is lower (higher) in spring, the onset of the SCSSM occurs earlier (later). The reason why the anomalies of the land surface temperatures north of 40^oN can influence the atmospheric circulation is investigated by analysis of the wind and temperature fields. In order to verify the mechanisms of influence over the land and sea surface temperature distribution patterns and test the ability of the p-σ regional climate model (p-σ RCM9) to simulate the SCSSM onset, three types of years with early, normal, and late SCSSM onset are selected and the SCSSM regimes are numerically simulated. According to the results obtained from five sensitive experiments, when the land surface temperature is higher in the eastern part, north of 40^oN, and lower in the western part, north of 40^oN, and it rises faster in the eastern coastal regions and the Indian Peninsula, while the sea surface temperatures over the SCS-WNP are lower, the early onset of the SCSSM can be expected.     

Historical perspective on the dust bowl drought in the central United States

Three new 159-year long reconstructions of spring, summer, and growing season precipitation totals were developed for northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri from five station clusters (Lawrence, Leavenworth, and Manhattan, Kansas; Miami and Oregon, Missouri). Nonstandard observation practices are inherent in the early meteorological data, which can induce an undercount in precipitation measurements, particularly during the cool season. Threshold analyses of these five station clusters indicated undercount can be lessened for daily precipitation totals of 0.50 in. and greater during the warm season (“half-inch threshold”). Therefore, “adjusted reconstructions” of total precipitation for the spring (AMJ), summer (JA), and growing season (AMJJA) were derived using the “half-inch threshold” totals and an estimate of the missing amount between 0.00 and 0.50 in. based on an average of the modern observations at each station (or the nearest available station). The new precipitation reconstructions suggest that the most severe spring drought may have occurred during the mid-19th century, although the potential for undercount is likely highest during the spring season. The most severe summer precipitation deficit is estimated during the 1930s Dust Bowl drought, followed by the summer drought of the 1910s. When precipitation is totaled for the entire growing season, the mid-19th century and Dust Bowl droughts were of approximately equal magnitude and duration in this reconstruction. However, the integration of precipitation and temperature into seasonal measures of effective moisture, using a new 19th century temperature reconstruction for northeastern Kansas, indicates that the 1930s growing season moisture deficit was the most severe and sustained since 1855, highlighting the extraordinarily high temperatures recorded during the 1930s Dust Bowl drought.     

European climate of the past 500 years: new challenges for historical climatology

Temperature reconstructions from Europe for the past 500 years based on documentary and instrumental data are analysed. First, the basic documentary data sources, including information about climate and weather-related extremes, are described. Then, the standard palaeoclimatological reconstruction method adopted here is discussed with a particular application to temperature reconstructions from documentary-based proxy data. The focus is on two new reconstructions; January–April mean temperatures for Stockholm (1502–2008), based on a combination of data for the sailing season in the Stockholm harbour and instrumental temperature measurements, and monthly Central European temperature (CEuT) series (1500–2007) based on documentary-derived temperature indices of the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland combined with instrumental records from the same countries. The two series, both of which are individually discussed in greater detail in subsequent papers in this special edition, are here compared and analysed using running correlations and wavelet analysis. While the Stockholm series shows a pronounced low-frequency component, the CEuT series indicates much weaker low-frequency variations. Both series are analysed with respect to three different long-period reconstructions of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and are compared with other European temperature reconstructions based on tree-rings, wine-harvest data and various climate multiproxies. Correlation coefficients between individual proxy-based series show weaker correlations compared to the instrumental data. There are also indications of temporally varying temperature cross-correlations between different areas of Europe. The two temperature reconstructions have also been compared to geographically corresponding temperature output from simulations with global and regional climate models for the past few centuries. The findings are twofold: on the one hand, the analysis reinforces the hypothesis that the index-data based CEuT reconstruction may not appropriately reflect the centennial scale variations. On the other hand, it is possible that climate models may underestimate regional decadal variability. By way of a conclusion, the results are discussed from a broader point of view and attention is drawn to some new challenges for future investigations in the historical climatology in Europe.     

Risk assessment of drought disaster in typical area of corn cultivation in China

A new dataset of surface temperature over North America has been constructed by merging climate model results and empirical tree-ring data through the application of an optimal interpolation algorithm. Errors of both the Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) simulation and the tree-ring reconstruction were considered to optimize the combination of the two elements. Variance matching was used to reconstruct the surface temperature series. The model simulation provided the background field, and the error covariance matrix was estimated statistically using samples from the simulation results with a running 31-year window for each grid. Thus, the merging process could continue with a time-varying gain matrix. This merging method (MM) was tested using two types of experiment, and the results indicated that the standard deviation of errors was about 0.4 °C lower than the tree-ring reconstructions and about 0.5 °C lower than the model simulation. Because of internal variabilities and uncertainties in the external forcing data, the simulated decadal warm–cool periods were readjusted by the MM such that the decadal variability was more reliable (e.g., the 1940–1960s cooling). During the two centuries (1601–1800 AD) of the preindustrial period, the MM results revealed a compromised spatial pattern of the linear trend of surface temperature, which is in accordance with the phase transition of the Pacific decadal oscillation and Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Compared with pure CCSM4 simulations, it was demonstrated that the MM brought a significant improvement to the decadal variability of the gridded temperature via the merging of temperature-sensitive tree-ring records.     

Seasonal variability of the observed and the projected daily temperatures in northern Saudi Arabia

Variability in the observed daily temperature for the 31-year period (1978–2008) is studied for northern Saudi Arabia (nSA) by computing the probability distribution functions (PDFs) on a seasonal basis. The 31-year base period is divided into three decades and the results for the first (1978–1987) and the last decade (1999–2008) are presented. When averaged over all seasons, mean values of the observed decadal PDFs depict a positive shift from the first to last decade in the minimum, mean, and maximum temperature of 0.81 °C, 1.03 °C, and 1.25 °C, respectively. The daily temperature datasets from a regional climate model (RCM) and two versions of a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) are compared with the observed daily temperature datasets. The RCM is driven by re-analysis data for the historical period and by the HadCM3 model for the future, while the AOGCMs used are the GFDL CM2.0 and 2.1 models, with both HadCM3 and the GFDL simulations corresponding to the SRES A1B scenario. The average shifts from 1978–1987 to 1999–2008 in the mean value of the PDFs for the minimum, mean and maximum temperature are 0.63 °C, 0.54 °C and 0.45 °C, respectively, for the RCM, and 0.97 °C, 0.97 °C and 0.96 °C, respectively, for the AOGCM. Thus, the RCM shows a smaller shift in the mean of PDF for maximum temperature than for mean or minimum temperature, the AOGCM shows a comparable shift for all three, and the observations show a greater shift in the PDF for maximum temperature. For the period 2070–2099 relative to 1978–2008, the three average shifts are 4.11 °C, 3.87 °C and 3.44 °C for the RCM and 3.63 °C, 3.74 °C and 3.84 °C for the AOGCM.     

On the spatiotemporal characteristics of Fennoscandian tree-ring based summer temperature reconstructions

Summary We analyse the spatial representation of five previously published multi-century to millennial length dendroclimatological reconstructions of Fennoscandian summer temperatures. The reconstructions, ranging from local to regional scale, were based on either tree-ring width (TRW) or maximum latewood density (MXD) data or on a combination of the two. TRW chronologies are shown to provide reasonably good spatial information mainly for July temperatures, but a combination of TRW and MXD yields a better spatial representation for the whole summer season (June–August). A multiple-site reconstruction does not necessarily provide better spatial representation than a single site reconstruction, depending on the criterion for selecting data and also on the strength of the climate signal in the tree-ring data. In a new approach to analyse the potential for further developing Fennoscandian temperature reconstructions, we selected from a network of TRW and MXD chronologies those having the strongest temperature information a priori, to obtain a strong common climate signal suitable for a regional-scale reconstruction. Seven separate, but not independent, reconstructions based on progressively decreasing numbers of chronologies were created. We show that it is possible to improve the spatial representation of available reconstructions back to around AD 1700, giving high correlations (>0.7) with observed summer temperatures for nearly the whole of Fennoscandia, and even higher correlations (>0.85) over much of central-northern Fennoscandia. Further sampling of older trees (e.g. dry-dead and subfossil wood) would be needed to achieve the same high correlations prior to AD 1700. Our analysis suggests that it should be possible to select a few key sites for improving the reconstructions before AD 1700. Since tree-ring data from northern Fennoscandia are used in all available hemispheric-scale temperature reconstructions for the last millennium, there is also a potential for slightly improving the quality of the hemispheric-scale reconstructions, by including an improved reconstruction for Fennoscandia. However, adding new chronologies from previously unsampled regions would potentially improve hemispheric-scale temperature reconstructions more substantially. Authors’ addresses: Isabelle Gouirand, Anders Moberg, Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Hans W. Linderholm, Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, G?teborg University, SE-405 30 G?teborg, Sweden; Barbara Wohlfarth, Department of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.     

江西省冬季气温异常与区域海温的关联

利用1960-2010年江西省81个台站月平均气温观测资料和NOAA全球月平均海表温度资料(ERSST-V3),分析了江西省冬季气温异常与海温异常的相互联系,并运用超前-滞后相关分析和奇异值分解(SVD)方法初步探讨了关键区海温异常之间的相互作用.结果表明:①影响江西省冬季气温异常的海温关键区和关键时段分别为同期印度洋(10°S～20°N,54°～90°E)、同期西北太平洋(20°～40°N,120°～180°E)和前期8-9月北大西洋中部(24°～44°N,20°～60°W)海域;②西北太平洋关键区暖水年预示暖冬年好于印度洋区,而印度洋区冷水年预示冷冬年稍好于西北太平洋区,冬季西北太平洋与印度洋海温异常可以修正前期8-9月北大西洋中部海温异常对江西省冬季气温的影响.