Is Recent Warming Exceeding the Range of the Past 125,000 Years?

ESPER, Jan, Philipp SCHULZ and Ulf BÜNTGEN. Is Recent Warming Exceeding the Range of the Past 125,000 Years? Atmosphere. MDPI, 2024, vol. 15, No 4, p. 1-8. ISSN 2073-4433. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos15040405.

Basic information

• Original name: Is Recent Warming Exceeding the Range of the Past 125,000 Years?
• Authors: ESPER, Jan (guarantor), Philipp SCHULZ and Ulf BÜNTGEN (276 Germany, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Atmosphere, MDPI, 2024, 2073-4433.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 10511 Environmental sciences
• Country of publisher: Switzerland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Impact factor: Impact factor: 2.900 in 2022
• Organization unit: Faculty of Science
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos15040405
• UT WoS: 001211355200001
• Keywords in English: proxy data; climate archive; global surface temperature; climate change; Holocene
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the latest decade was warmer than any multi-century period over the past 125,000 years. This statement rests on a comparison of modern instrumental measurements against the course of past temperatures reconstructed from natural proxy archives, such as lake and marine sediments, and peat bogs. Here, we evaluate this comparison with a focus on the hundreds of proxy records developed by paleoclimatologists across the globe to reconstruct climate variability over the Holocene (12,000 years) and preceded by the Last Glacial Period (125,000 years). Although the existing proxy data provide a unique opportunity to reconstruct low-frequency climate variability on centennial timescales, they lack temporal resolution and dating precision for contextualizing the most recent temperature extremes. While the IPCC’s conclusion on the uniqueness of latest-decade warming is thus not supported by comparison with these smoothed paleotemperatures, it is still likely correct as ice core-derived forcing timeseries show that greenhouse gases were not elevated during any pre-instrumental period of the Holocene.