CHN Quarterly Newsletter Fall 2015

Climate History News

Newsletter of the Climate History Network

A network of interdisciplinary scholars

studying past climate change

Past Present Future

Conferences News & Updates Upcoming Events

ICHG 2015 London Report
ESEH 2015 Versailles Report
Workshop Reports
Recent Publications
Research Highlights: Proxy
Climate Reconstruction
Documentary-Based Climate
Reconstruction and Impacts
Proxy-Based Reconstruction of
Historical Times
Letter from the Founders
Climate History Podcast
Latin American Climate History
Best of the Web
Featured Article
Whatever Happened to the Global
Warming “Pause?”
PAGES
Crisis of the 14th Century
ASEH
Calls for Proposals
ICHST
Calls for Abstracts
Northeastern Naturalist

Climate History News is a quarterly newsletter distributed to

members of the CHN. If you would like to make a
contribution to future issues, please email our newsletter
editor at njcunigan@gmail.com.
 Fall 2015

Letter from the Founders

Here is the first edition of our new quarterly newsletter for Climate History
Network members and listserv subscribers. We’re very grateful for the hard
work and technical skills of Nicholas Cunigan, a PhD candidate at the
University of Kansas and our newsletter editor.

We've come a long way with this network and webpage since we first came up
with the idea more than five years ago. This year alone, we’ve debuted a
listserv, a podcast, and now this newsletter. We’ve sought closer links with the
sciences, and we’ve collaborated with our members at meetings in Versailles
and London. As the field of climate history grows and develops, the Climate Dagomar Degroot
History Network will continue to connect scholars, plan meetings, and
facilitate collaboration. Along the way, we’ll keep teachers and researchers up
to date with the latest news and publications in climate history.

But we can't do it all ourselves. Please share you thoughts, ideas, news, and
announcements through the listserv or with us. In particular, we'd like to hear
about new projects, meetings, and publications you want to share with our
community. Of course, we're always looking for volunteers to write about
recent events and research for this newsletter and the website. We’d also
welcome your assistance as we expand and edit our bibliographic database of
over one thousand articles and books. You can find it at:
https://www.zotero.org/groups/historical_climatology_network_bibliographi
cal_project
Sam White
Enjoy the newsletter, and please stay in touch!

Sam White and Dagomar Degroot

Climate History
Podcast
Dagomar Degroot has launched our new
Climate History Podcast by interviewing
Geoffrey Parker, author of Global Crisis: War,
Climate Change and Catastrophe in the
Seventeenth Century. If you have iTunes, you
can now subscribe to our podcast series.
Every few months, we will add new interviews
with the most interesting people in climate
change research, journalism, and
Subscribe now on iTunes policymaking, always with an eye to how we
or visit can use the past to enrich our understanding of
http://bit.ly/1J0tkJs the2 present and future.
 Fall 2015

Latin American Climate Upcoming Events

History: Invitation to
Past Global Changes
Research & Publish For more information about PAGES-
By: Katherinne Mora, National University of sponsored events visit:
Colombia http://www.pages-igbp.org
Antarctica2k 2015 Meeting
Climate history is growing in Latin America, as 3-4 September 2015
researchers, NGOs, and public institutions have Venice, Italy
shown growing interest. (We include several
examples of Latin American climate history in 1st Ocean2k Workshop
the new publications list in this newletter.) 6-8 October 2015
However, it remains a small field, and most of the Barcelona, Spain
research and publications are concentrated in
Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile. As an Aus2k: Australasian Paleoclimate
indicator, in the last meeting of SOLCHA (the 27-29 October 2015
Spanish acronym for Latin American and Auckland, New Zealand
Caribbean Society of Environmental History),
held in October 2014 in Quilmes (Argentina),
only one panel was dedicated to climate history; The Crisis of the 14th Century
and in that panel, only two of five presenters
spoke about pre-instrumental periods. We For more information visit:
encourage other researchers to include in their http://bit.ly/1KQe4k0
agendas the almost unexplored countries of
24-26 February 2016
Central and South America. These regions are German Historical Institute
directly affected by ENSO, and proxies from the Rome, Italy
Andes Mountains could help us reconstruct the
Little Ice Age. We also invite more researchers
to publish in journals of Latin American history, ASEH
especially in Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana
For more information visit: aseh.net
y Caribeña (HALAC) published by SOLCHA since
2010. For more information please visit: 30 March – 3 April 2016
http://revistas.unicentro.br/index.php/halac Seattle, Washington

3
 Fall 2015

Calls for Proposals

International Congress of History of
Science, and Technology (ICHST)
The 25th International Congress of History of
Science, and Technology (ICHST) will be held in
the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 23 to 29
July 2017. The call for symposia will begin on 1
September 2015, followed by the call for
papers. For more information, see the website
http://www.ichst2017.sbhc.org.br. (NB: During
discussions at the ICHG and ESEH, we identified
this as a good venue for the next general
meeting of the Climate History Network: we’ll be
in touch with plans to coordinate more panel and
paper proposals.)

Calls for Abstracts

Winter Ecology in Northeastern
Naturalist

Thomas Wickman is pleased to announce an
opportunity for environmental historians, historians
of science, or historical climatologists to contribute
research articles to a special issue of Northeastern
Naturalist dedicated to the topic of winter ecology.
The mission of the special issue is three-fold: to
highlight the region’s winter ecology in general, to
provide a venue for studies stemming from the
historically severe winter of 2014-15, and to
understand winter ecology through the lens of
history. Historical articles may include, but are not
limited to, case studies of severe winters, analyses of
changing winter landscapes and waterways over
longer periods of time, and critical interpretations of
the evolution of the field of winter ecology in the
American Northeast. The call for abstracts,
description of the special issue, and online
submission form can be found online
at http://commons.trincoll.edu/winterecology/.
Abstracts are due by 1 October 20 (invitations to
submit manuscript made by 15 October 2015).
Manuscript deadline: 15 February 2016 with a
targeted publication date of January 2017. You can
contact Thomas Wickman at
Thomas.wickman@trincoll.edu with any additional
questions.

4

Best of the Web
September 2015
Repeat Photography of Alaskan Glaciers. USGS.
http://www.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/glaciers/repeat_photog
raphy.asp
From Katrina, an “Amazing” Decade of Climate
Research. Climate Central.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-katrina-
changed-climate-research-19386
Here’s What Happens When You Try to Replicate
Climate Contrarian Papers. The Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-
consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-
happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-
papers
Chinese Cave Inscriptions Tell Woeful Tale of
Drought. EOS.
https://eos.org/articles/chinese-cave-inscriptions-tell-
woeful-tale-of-drought
Greenhouse Gases Caused Glacial Retreat in Last
Ice Age. Reporting Climate Science.
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-
stories/article/greenhouse-gases-caused-glacial-
retreat-in-last-ice-age.html
California Drought: Climate Change Plays a Role,
Study Says. But How Big? LA Times.
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-climate-change-
drought-20150820-story.html
August 2015
When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day
Job. Esquire Magazine.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-
of-the-sad-climatologists-0815
Fossil Fuels May Bring Major Changes to Carbon
Dating. Climate Central.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/fossil-fuels-major-
changes-radiocarbon-19288
"Carbon Sink" Detected Underneath World's
Deserts. AGU Newsroom.
http://news.agu.org/press-release/carbon-sink-
detected-underneath-worlds-deserts
5
Fall 2015
Mammoths Died Out Because of Sudden Climate
Change. Discover News.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/mammoths-
died-out-because-of-sudden-climate-change-150725.htm
Gulf Stream Slowdown Linked with European
Cooling. Reporting Climate Science.
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-
stories/article/gulf-stream-slowdown-linked-with-sudden-
european-cooling.html
Medievalist Helps Scientists Rewrite Climate
Records. Medievalists.net.
http://www.medievalists.net/2015/07/09/medievalist-helps-
scientists-rewrite-climate-records
July/June 2015
Global Warming Causing Great Loss of Bumblebee
Habitat. Sci-News.
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-global-
warming-loss-bumblebee-habitat-03004.html
Sea Level Could Rise at Least 6 Meters. Scientific
American.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sea-level-
could-rise-at-least-6-meters
Heat is Being Stored Beneath the Ocean Surface.
NASA Earth Observatory.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86
184&src=eorss-iotd
Study Finds Sudden Shift in “Forcing” Led to
Demise of Laurentide Ice Sheet. OSU News.
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2015/jun/study-
finds-sudden-shift-“forcing”-led-demise-laurentide-ice-
sheet
Thawing Arctic Carbon Threatens 'Runaway' Global
Warming. The Ecologist.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2869575/t
hawing_arctic_carbon_threatens_runaway_global_warming.ht
ml
Because There Are No Spare Earths. NASA Climate
Change.
http://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2295
What's Really Warming the World? Bloomberg
Business.
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-
the-world

Conference Reports
By: Andrea Williams, Colorado State University
CHN Open Meeting at ICHG 2015
The Climate History Network held an open
meeting over lunch at the International
Conference of Historical Geographers (ICHG) on
July 6, 2015. Approximately 37 people were
present. Sam White reported briefly on the
network’s activities, proposed a few areas of
focus for feedback, and moderated the
discussion.
Climate History Network Activities
Sam described the network’s initiative to target
ICHG by coordinating a number of panels in
climate history and by organizing the Climate
History Network meeting and listing it on the
conference program. The effort to coordinate
6
Fall 2015
panels has proved a great success. Nearly every
time slot of this conference has included a
climate history panel, and the panels have been
well attended by the CHN community. Likewise,
this CHN meeting was successful in drawing a
good crowd, and publicizing it clearly helped.
In addition, the CHN organizers recently
surveyed members about their wishes and ideas
for the network’s future, and Sam discussed the
results of that survey. Members indicated that
they particularly appreciated CHN’s
bibliographic and data resources as well as its
potential for networking and collaboration
among members. Based on these results, Sam
suggested building on the current network as it
stands, rather than trying to construct a more
formal society at this time.
Feedback Target Areas
At the meeting, Sam asked for feedback from
those present in a few specific areas: 1) creating
and maintaining a listserv, 2) whether to meet at
an established conference or establish our own,
3) whether to make the network more policy
relevant (and if so, how), 4) how to reach and
engage a more global membership, 5) funding
for and through the network, and 6) expansion of
the network’s bibliographic research database.
1. Listserv: Those in attendance strongly
supported the creation of a listserv, making a few
key points:
▪ A listserv provides a way to reach
members who may forget or be too busy
to check the website for updates
▪ The listserv is a way to distribute the
newsletter that CHN organizers are
working to establish
▪ It can be used to alert members of jobs,
 Fall 2015

workshops and publications, and provide a We concluded the meeting by encouraging

vehicle for communication among members
▪ Members of ICHM (historical meteorology)
present at the meeting were receptive to the
idea of opening up their established listserv
to CHN
2. Conference Planning: We talked extensively
about this issue. Those present at the meeting
expressed two distinct perspectives on
conferences, with some advocating for the
establishment of an independent conference and
others preferring the idea of coordinating panels
and meetings at an established conference, as CHN
did this year at ICHG. Both sides stressed the
importance of keeping conferences affordable for
attendees. A third idea proposed that CHN might
develop 1-2 days of climate history / historical
climatology sessions as an appendix to an existing
conference. This option could be a way to reconcile
the two perspectives by incorporating many
positive aspects of both. The upcoming European
Geophysical Union (EGU) Conference in Vienna
was identified as a possible target.
those present to be active, engaged participants
in the development and future of the Climate
History Network. The organizers, Sam and
Dagomar, need help in order to sustain and
extend the reach of CHN. Its value and success
depend on active, continued support from its
members.
CHN Open Discussion at ESEH 2015
On July 1, 2015, the Climate History Network met
over lunch in Versailles, France, in conjunction
with the European Society for Environmental
History (ESEH) biennial conference. Seven
members of the network attended this informal
event, including organizers Dagomar Degroot
and Sam White. We focused on the following
issues: recruitment and expanding the network,
conferences and other forms of collaboration,
administrative tasks, and funding.

3. and 4. were not discussed in detail.

5. Funding: We briefly discussed a few potential

awards and funding possibilities that CHN might
provide, such as an annual article award and
graduate student travel support for conferences
and workshops. Such initiatives would require CHN
to gain non-profit status and seek grants, donations,
and other financial resources.

6. Bibliographic Database: Sam encouraged

members to share sources and news with him so
that we can maintain useful and up-to-date
resources on the CHN website. Our Zotero
database already has over 1,000 publications, but
the field is growing fast!

7

Recruitment and Expanding Membership:
We would like to expand the Climate History
Network’s global reach by recruiting members
from beyond the Climate History and
Environmental History community. Indeed, the
network aims to provide a useful resource for
anyone whose research can be enriched by
historical climate data. In the meeting, members
suggested several ways to broaden the network,
including: increased collaboration with the
International Commission on the History of
Meteorology, encouraging current members to
recruit colleagues, bolstering the network’s
presence at conferences in relevant areas of
history and science, and structuring and enriching
that presence through the facilitation of panels,
member meetings, forums, and workshops.
Conferences and Collaboration:
The CHN organizers are open to ideas for
community expression, collaboration, and
exchange. Based on our discussion, it seems most
practical at this point for the Climate History
Network to work through established conferences,
rather than organizing an independent conference.
We discussed the idea of organizing a web-based,
video conference event or forum, which is
appealing because of its low cost and the potential
for recording sessions and sharing them via the
CHN website.
Administrative Tasks:
We hope to begin regular publication of a Climate
History Network e-newsletter, which will be sent to
members and posted on the website. We also plan
to establish and maintain a listserv (possibly
through H-Net) that will allow us to better manage
and reach members. At the meeting, the organizers
encouraged graduate students and other members
8
Fall 2015
to take on these and other administrative tasks as
a way to get more involved in the academic
community and gain valuable (and marketable)
experience.
Funding:
We discussed potential sources of funding for
CHN initiatives as well as using the network to
advertise and facilitate access to funding sources
for climate history research. The organizers are
currently targeting a few grant opportunities for
the network, and they are seeking input into how
potential funding might be used. The CHN
website currently provides links to relevant
fellowship and grant opportunities, but we would
like to expand this list and keep it current by
encouraging members to share opportunities as
they arise.
We thank those present for a great meeting. If
you were not able to attend either the ESEH
conference or ICHG conference, but have
suggestions for how we can continue to develop
our network, feel free to contact Dagomar or
Sam.
Workshop Reports
Famines During the Little Ice Age
The organizers of the workshop “Famines during
the Little Ice Age,” held in Bielefeld in February,
have posted a report online at:
http://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/ta
gungsberichte-5939. The meeting, which
brought together presentations from more than a
dozen geographers, historians and
climatologists, focused on advancing
interdisciplinary research in medieval and early
modern European climate reconstruction, the
causes and consequences of famine, and human
 Fall 2015

perceptions and adaptations to climate change and Several presentations drew on recent and ongoing
extreme weather. studies of Anatolian lake sediments. Samantha
Allcock examined the long-term vegetation and
Climate and Society in Byzantine and climate history around Nar Lake, concluding that
climate could have been one of several drivers of
Ottoman Anatolia, 300-1900CE regional land use and population change
particularly during the 7th-8th centuries AD. Neil
Towards understanding the impact of climate on
Roberts demonstrated evidence from oxygen
complex societies of the pre-industrial era, 1-3
isotope ratios in annually varved lake sediments for
May 2015
major droughts during the last several centuries in
Anatolia, including the late 16th-century drought
Building on the 2013 meeting Climate in Byzantine
described in Climate of Rebellion. Warren Eastwood
Anatolia, Prof. John Haldon of Princeton University
and Çetin Şenkul presented ongoing research
convened a group of some two dozen researchers
comparing Ottoman cadastral surveys to cereal
in history, archaeology, environmental modeling,
pollen counts in annually varved lake sediments,
and climate science for a second three-day
providing a way to test the reliability of those
workshop. The meeting emphasized the sharing of
records and to fill in gaps in written evidence of
information and perspectives from diverse fields in
land use. Sena Akçer-Ön discussed two studies
order to produce more effective multi-disciplinary
analyzing the isotopic record and geomorphology
research. In particular, participants tried to work
of Küçükçekmece Lagoon in Istanbul and Lake Bafa
out how climatology and environmental sciences
in southwestern Turkey. One presetation, by Sturt
could best present their findings to make them
Manning, discussed tree-ring studies in different
useful for historians and archaeologists, and vice
regions of Anatolia, emphasizing the value of
versa. While focused on climate in Anatolia, the
dendro data for precise high-resolution climate
workshop also brought in perspectives from recent
reconstructions.
archaeological work on climate and land use early
imperial China (Arlene Rosen) and an ongoing
Another group of presenters discussed recent and
project examining precipitation changes,
ongoing archaeological work that could shed light
vegetation history, and the rise of the Mongol
on land use and climate change impacts in Late
Empire (Nicola Di Cosmo, Hanqin Tian, Shufen
Antique and Byzantine Anatolia. These included
Pan). Additional presentations examined the
findings from an archaeological investigation of
relationship among climate and livestock diseases
Pontus during the 1st-8th centuries AD (Owen
in medieval Europe (Tim Newfield) and the history
Doonan), the excavation of mid-late Byzantine Çadır
of earthquakes in the Byzantine Empire (Lee
Höyük (Marica Cassis), and a recent dissertation on
Mordechai).
the architecture of Late Antique and Byzantine
urban water supplies systems (Jordan Pickett).
Presenters examined climate and human history in
Tying together many of the themes of the workshop,
Anatolia from a range of perspectives. In the first
Adam Izdebski, Elena Xoplaki, and Dominik
session, Deniz Bozkurt explained regional climate
Fleitmann presented on their recent work leading
processes and large-scale forcing drawing on
an multidisciplinary team of historians and climate
instrumental weather data and climate models; and
scientists to reconstruct and model climatic changes
Sam White discussed the findings of his previous
and impacts in Anatolia during the Medieval
book, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern
Climate Anomaly. To close the meeting, Prof.
Ottoman Empire (Cambridge, 2011), as well as
Izdebski discussed the lessons learned from this
more recent studies in Ottoman climate history and
project in forging successful interdisciplinary
what implications they might have for the study of research collaborations and publications.
climate in the Byzantine Empire.

9

Whatever Happened to the Global Warming
“Pause?”
By: Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown University
It is only September, but, absent a massive volcanic
eruption or asteroid impact, 2015 will be, by far,
the hottest year on the instrumental record. The
culprit is a massive El Niño that is compounding the
warming effects of rising greenhouse gas
emissions. This year’s scorching heat will mean that
the three hottest years on record will have
occurred within the same five-year stretch: in 2010,
2014, and 2015.
In June, scientists with the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published
a major article that measures the rate of global
warming in light of this recent heat. The article uses
a suite of new sources on land and across the
oceans to provide a comprehensive temperature
reconstruction from 1880 to the present. Many of
these sources provide meteorological data of
unprecedented accuracy. The new temperature
reconstruction includes especially substantial
corrections to previous global sea surface
10
Fall 2015
temperature statistics from the years 1880 to 1940.
It also makes minor adjustments to temperature
reconstructions of the last twenty years. In fact,
using their new data, the NOAA scientists conclude
that global temperatures have increased steady
since 1950. This is a major finding that contradicts
the popular idea of a “pause” or “hiatus” in recent
warming.
According to climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director
of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “the fact
that such small changes to the analysis make the
difference between a hiatus or not . . . underlines
how fragile a concept [the pause] was in the first
place.” So how did that pause become such an
influential idea? Given the forces behind record-
setting temperatures this year, it is not surprising
that the answer must begin with another major El
Niño, eighteen years ago.
El Ninos compared. Source: NASA JPL, Bay Area
News Group
From 1997 to 1998, that record-breaking El Niño
slowly uncoiled across the tropical Pacific. In an El
Niño, trade winds that normally blow from east to
west slow down, lowering the layer of water that

divides the upper from the lower ocean. That, in
turn, reduces the efficiency of cool, deep-water
upwelling. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the
equatorial Pacific extend far to the east, and
reshape atmospheric circulation around the world.
In 1998, global temperatures rose sharply.
Temperature records are usually set by a
hundredth of a degree Celsius, but temperatures in
1998 exceeded the previous high-water mark by a
tenth of a degree. It was the meteorological
equivalent of Usain Bolt’s performance at the 2008
Olympics.
The mechanism by which El Nino affects the world's
climate. "Atmospheric bridge" by Giorgiogp2 -
Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via
Commons. https://goo.gl/EMTxYU
Looking back in 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the 1998
spike in Earth’s temperature was an “extreme
event,” even in the context of human-caused
climate change. Inevitably, global temperatures
cooled in the immediate wake of the great El Niño,
although they remained much higher than the
twentieth-century average. Still, to some, the
warnings of climate scientists had suddenly
become incompatible with the recent instrumental
record. The idea of the “pause” was born.
Global warming sceptics quickly sought to
popularize the concept. Naomi Oreskes and Eric
Conway recently chronicled how some activist
scientists have, for decades, derailed the public
discourse on science that appears to challenge the
unfettered workings of the free market. They tried
to undermine, for example, science that links
cigarette smoke to lung cancer, and
11
Fall 2015
chlorofluorocarbons to the Ozone Hole. They lost
those battles, but found greater success in their
fight against climate science. At every step, they
have deployed the weapon of doubt. If the science
that supports regulation can be made to sound
uncertain, it can hardly serve as a foundation for
government policy.
Already in 2006, palaeontologist Robert Carter, for
instance, insisted that temperatures had remained
steady for eight years, since 1998. In his telling, the
science behind global warming appeared anything
but settled. Carter, a well-known denier of
anthropogenic warming, co-authored a notorious
paper in 2009, which argued that El Niño events
account for most of the changes in global
temperature over the past fifty years. Three years
later, Carter admitted that he received a monthly
salary from the Heartland Institute, an influential
organization committed to denying global
warming. Regardless, Carter made an error that is
also committed by better-intentioned sceptics of
anthropogenic climate change. He identified a
climatic trend by cherry picking a past date - an
abnormally warm year - that allowed him to argue
for recent cooling.
Even many scientists who agree with the scholarly
consensus on global warming believed that the
steady rise in Earth’s temperature had slowed - but
not stopped - since 1998. As reported on this
website, most of their research tied this supposed
slowdown to one of two sets of variables. Some
scientists argued that entirely natural causes had
temporarily reduced the amount of solar radiation
reaching the Earth. For example, as I reported on
this website, one influential article blamed a recent
spate of small volcanic eruptions. Other scientists
more persuasively concluded that different parts of
the climate system appeared to absorb more heat
than had been thought possible. The oceans were
widely cited as the destination for warmth that
might otherwise have reached our atmosphere.
Nevertheless, the so-called “pause” in global
warming barely registered in the public
consciousness until early 2013. In January of that
year, an article by lead author James Hansen –
perhaps the most responsible and vocal voice in

global warming scholarship – began with alarming
news. In 2012, it announced, temperatures the
world over had been 0.56 degrees Celsius warmer
than the 1951-1980 base average. This was in spite
of a La Niña that had chilled the waters of the
equatorial Pacific, and therefore had the opposite
effect on global temperatures of an El Niño.
Unfortunately, Hansen’s report contained a
misleading and ultimately disastrous headline.
Under “Global Warming Standstill,” the report
noted that the five-year running mean of global
temperature “has been flat for the past decade,”
despite a steady (if slowing) increase in
greenhouse gas emissions. The report speculated
about possible reasons, but concluded that the
most likely culprit was probably El Niño conditions
early in the period, followed by La Niña episodes in
more recent years. In years less troubled by these
conditions, temperatures continued to rise at the
rate they had in the previous three decades.
Google searches for "Global Warming Pause," as of
September 30th, 2013. Source: Google
Trends/Maggie Severns.
In March, an influential piece in The
Economist misinterpreted this part of Hansen’s
article. It began by declaring that, “over the past
15 years, air temperatures at the Earth’s surface
have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions
12
Fall 2015
have continued to soar.” The article did not deny
the existence of warming, and concluded that the
recent pause was “hardly reassuring.”
Nevertheless, it suggested that Earth might be less
sensitive to our carbon emissions than scientists
had previously believed. The Hansen article,
remember, had reached entirely different
conclusions.
The Economist article provided an opening for
sceptics of climate change to push the narrative of
the unexplained pause. Meanwhile, as chronicled
by Chris Mooney, the IPCC prepared to release
its fifth assessment report. In August, a leaked draft
was released to the press. It contained descriptions
of the pause that, when read in isolation, appeared
to confirm the Economist article. According to one
of the report’s lead authors, Dennis Hartmann of the
University of Washington, public pressure
convinced the scientists that they “had to say
something” about the pause. They were hesitant,
because the fifteen years between 1998 and 2013
were too short to reliably reflect a climatic trend.
Yet before they had finalized their interpretation of
the pause, it reached journalists who were only too
eager to sacrifice scientific accuracy for
sensationalistic headlines.
Not all proponents of the pause were scientifically
illiterate, or associated with global warming denial.
For example, in September 2013, Berkeley
physicist and converted climate sceptic Richard
Muller announced that the “global warming crowd
has a problem,” because, “despite a steady
escalation of greenhouse gas emissions into the
atmosphere, the planet’s average surface
temperature has remained pretty much the same
for the last 15 years.” Muller argued that he had
more or less predicated this pause back in 2004. It
was in a critique of the so-called “hockey stick”
graph that famously illustrated global warming
(and has been recently vindicated). In 2004, Muller
warned that, were the graph taken seriously, many
would see inevitable, natural variations in
temperature as undermining the case for
anthropogenic climate change. In 2013, it seemed
that Muller might be right.

Then, in late September, the IPCC finally released
its completed fifth assessment report. As
I described on this website, the report
acknowledged a slight slowdown in the rate of
global warming from 1998 to 2012. However, it
weakened the previous draft’s description of a
“pause” or “hiatus.” It confirmed that every decade
in the past thirty years had been successively
warmer than any previously recorded decade. As I
wrote in 2013, it also explained that “the presence
of short-term fluctuations in climate does not throw
into doubt the existence of long-term climatic
trends.” As one might expect, many sceptics met
the final report with derision.
Previous NOAA temperature reconstructions in red
(for land surface temperatures) and blue (for sea
surface temperatures). Corrections in the new
article are in black.
Fast forward to the present, and 2015 is set to be
another meteorological equivalent of Usain Bolt's
Olympic run. As in 1998, it looks like the previous
record temperature will be broken by a tenth of a
degree Celsius. Perhaps the narrative of the pause
is now on its deathbed. Yet the idea of a recent
slowdown in warming persists in very informed
circles. In an elegant article published in the
journal Science, climatologist Kevin Trenberth
responds to the NOAA paper by taking issue with
any warming trend that starts in 1950. After all, this
13
Fall 2015
was at the beginning of a so-called “big hiatus” in
warming that chilled the world between 1943 and
1975. If sceptics should not cherry pick the start
date of their temperature series by choosing an
abnormally warm year, climatologists should not
do the same by selecting a very cold year.
Interestingly, the big hiatus, which is well
supported by robust science, was probably also
caused by human activity. Aerosols released into
the atmosphere by human pollution probably
cooled the world, until clean air acts were passed
in the 1970s. In the past, anthropogenic climate
change could warm or cool the globe, and involve
many kinds of human activity.
Overall, Trenberth supports the major findings of
the NOAA scientists. He argues that there may have
been a slight slowdown – not a pause – in the rate
of global warming, driven at least partially by
natural variation in, for example, the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (which includes El Niño and La
El Niña). Yet he agrees that temperatures are rising
quickly once again, and that the slowdown has
probably ended.
Earlier this year, record-breaking wildfires spread
across North America, while heat waves killed
thousands in Europe and India. Sea levels, it seems,
are warming and rising much faster than even the
IPCC had predicated. The costs of climate change
inaction have become increasingly clear. Carbon
emissions have stagnated or declined in many
developed countries, yet it is far from enough.
Without drastic action, the weather of 2015 is only a
precursor of things to come.
Sources:
- Hansen, J., M. Sato, and R. Ruedy. "Global Temperature
Update Through 2015." 15 January, 2013. Available
at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_
Temperature2012.pdf
- Karl, Thomas R. et al. "Possible artifacts of data biases in the
recent global surface warming hiatus." Science 348: 6242
(2015): 1469-1472.
- Trenberth, Kevin E. "Has there been a hiatus?." Science 349:
6249 (2015): 691-692.
- Trenberth, Kevin E. "The definition of El Nino." Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society 78: 12 (1997): 2771-2777.

Research Highlights: Proxy Climate
Reconstruction
By: Sam White, The Ohio State University
New research on proxy-based climate
reconstruction continues to come out quickly,
and the resolution and precision of many
methods is steadily improving. For the most
part, this research has continues to focus on
Europe and China, but with a growing number
of studies in Africa and North and South
America. Better dating techniques have made
lake sediment studies increasingly useful for
historians, and the publication list in this issues
of our newsletter includes a number of
examples. Yet overall, the majority of the most
useful proxy studies for historical climate
research remain tree ring-based
reconstructions of temperature and drought.
The past three months have seen the
publication of three especially significant and
high-profile studies analyzing major issues in
historical climate variability and change:
First, Pablo Ortega et al., “A Model-Tested
North Atlantic Oscillation Reconstruction for the
Past Millennium,” Nature 523 (2015): 71,
provides a new NAO index derived from dozens
of NAO proxies. It does not find that the NAO
was persistently positive during the Medieval
Climate Anomaly nor persistently negative
during the Little Ice Age as found in previous
NAO studies. Nevertheless, the new index
reproduces many familiar features, including a
tendency toward positive phases during the
13th-14th centuries, and anomalies following
major eruptions, especially in the 1450s, 1780s,
and around 1600AD.
Second, Lea Schneider et al., “Revising
14
Fall 2015
Midlatitude Summer Temperatures back to AD600
Based on a Wood Density Network,” Geophysical
Research Letters 42 (2015): 4556–62, produces a
new reconstruction of mid-latitude North
Hemsiphere summer temperatures combining
maximum latewood density measurements from
several networks of tree rings. This approach is
designed to avoid many of the difficulties related
to past studies using ring width measurements,
which could have trouble capturing low-
frequency variability (long-term changes) and
might have exaggerated responses to volcanic
effects. The results could be very significant for
climate historians working on the Little Ice Age.
Compared to previous studies, the authors find
less evidence for sustained cooling until the late
16th century, when temperatures fell rapidly,
reaching a minimum during the early 1600s.
Third, M. Sigl et al., “Timing and Climate Forcing
of Volcanic Eruptions for the Past 2,500 Years,”
Nature 523 (2015): 543–49, have produced a new,
more precise record of volcanic eruptions and
climate impacts in the Northern Hemisphere.
Their study corrects the misdating of some
eruptions, and consequently emphasizes the
cooling effect of volcanoes. The study finds
especially important consequences for the thirty
or so largest eruptions of the last 2,500 years. The
impact of multiple volcanic eruptions appears
particularly strong during the 530s-40sAD and
1590s-1600sAD, which the study finds to be the
two coldest decadal periods in the past two and a
half millennia.

Documentary-Based Climate Reconstruction
and Impacts:
Degroot, Dagomar. “Exploring the North in a
Changing Climate: The Little Ice Age and the
Journals of Henry Hudson, 1607-1611.” Journal of
Northern Studies 9 (2015): 69–91.
Hall, J., B. Arheimer, G. T. Aronica, A. Bilibashi,
M. Boháč, O. Bonacci, M. Borga, et al. “A
European Flood Database: Facilitating
Comprehensive Flood Research beyond
Administrative Boundaries.” Proceedings of the
International Association of Hydrological Sciences
370 (2015): 89–95. doi:10.5194/piahs-370-89-
2015.
Kaniewski, David, Joël Guiot, and Elise Van
Campo. “Drought and Societal Collapse
3200 Years Ago in the Eastern Mediterranean: A
Review.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate
Change 6 (2015): 369–32. doi:10.1002/wcc.345.
Li, Hu, Chengbang An, Wenjie Fan, Weimiao
Dong, Yongtao Zhao, and Haipeng Wang.
“Population History and Its Relationship with
Climate Change on the Chinese Loess Plateau
during the Past 10,000 Years.” The Holocene 25
(2015): 1144–52. doi:10.1177/0959683615580200.
Metzger, Alexis. “Les temporalités climatiques
des paysages d’hiver hollandais.” Nouvelles
perspectives en sciences sociales : Revue
internationale de systémique complexe et d’études
relationnelles 10 (2015): 103–21.
doi:10.7202/1030265ar.
Munoz, Samuel E., Kristine E. Gruley, Ashtin
Massie, David A. Fike, Sissel Schroeder, and John
W. Williams. “Cahokia’s Emergence and Decline
Coincided with Shifts of Flood Frequency on the
Mississippi River.” Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences 112 (2015): 6319–24.
doi:10.1073/pnas.1501904112.
Prieto, M. R., and F. Rojas. “Determination of
Droughts and High Floods of the Bermejo River
(Argentina) Based on Documentary Evidence
(17th to 20th Century).” Journal of Hydrology
15
Fall 2015
(advanced online publication) (June 21, 2015).
Rohland, Eleonora. “Hurricanes in New
Orleans: Disaster Migration and Adaptation,
1718-1794,” in Cultural Dynamics of Climate
Change and the Environment in Northern
America, ed. Bernd Sommer (Leiden: Brill,
2015), 137–58.
Sommer, Bernd, ed. Cultural Dynamics of
Climate Change and the Environment in
Northern America. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Warde, Paul. “Global Crisis or Global
Coincidence?” Past & Present 228 (2015): 287–
301. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtv028.
White, Sam, Richard Tucker, and Kenneth
Sylvester. “North American Climate History.”
In Cultural Dynamics of Climate Change and the
Environment in Northern America, edited by
Bernd Sommer, 109–36. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Xiao, Lingbo, Xiuqi Fang, Jingyun Zheng, and
Wanyi Zhao. “Famine, Migration and War:
Comparison of Climate Change Impacts and
Social Responses in North China between the
Late Ming and Late Qing Dynasties.” The
Holocene 25 (2015): 900–910.
doi:10.1177/0959683615572851.
Proxy-Based Climate Reconstruction of
Historical Times:
Abu-Zied, Ramadan H., and Rashad A. Bantan.
“Palaeoenvironment, Palaeoclimate and Sea-
Level Changes in the Shuaiba Lagoon during
the Late Holocene (last 3.6ka), Eastern Red Sea
Coast, Saudi Arabia.” Holocene 25 (2015):
1301–12. doi:10.1177/0959683615584204.
Araneda, Alberto, Fernando Torrejon,
Mauricio Aguayo, Laura Torres, Fabiola
Cruces, Marco Cisternas, and Roberto Urrutia.
“Historical Records of San Rafael Glacier
Advances (North Patagonian Icefield): Another
Clue to ‘Little Ice Age’ Timing in Southern
Chile?” Holocene 17 (2007): 987–98.
doi:10.1177/0959683607082414.

Brynjólfsson, Skafti, Anders Schomacker, Esther
Ruth Guðmundsdóttir, and Ólafur Ingólfsson. “A
300-Year Surge History of the Drangajökull Ice
Cap, Northwest Iceland, and Its Maximum during
the ‘Little Ice Age.’” The Holocene 25 (2015): 1076–
92. doi:10.1177/0959683615576232.
Buentgen, Ulf, Miroslav Trnka, Paul J. Krusic, Tomas
Kyncl, Josef Kyncl, Juerg Luterbacher, Eduardo
Zorita, et al. “Tree-Ring Amplification of the Early
Nineteenth-Century Summer Cooling in Central
Europe(a).” Journal of Climate 28 (2015): 5272–88.
doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00673.1.
Carrevedo, María L., Matías Frugone, Claudio
Latorre, Antonio Maldonado, Patricia Bernárdez,
Ricardo Prego, Daniela Cárdenas, and Blas Valero-
Garcés. “A 700-Year Record of Climate and
Environmental Change from a High Andean Lake:
Laguna Del Maule, Central Chile (36°S).” The
Holocene 25 (2015): 956–72.
doi:10.1177/0959683615574584.
Chawchai, Sakonvan, Akkaneewut Chabangborn,
Sherilyn Fritz, Minna Valiranta, Carl-Magnus Morth,
Maarten Blaauw, Paula J. Reimer, Paul J. Krusic,
Ludvig Lowemark, and Barbara Wohlfarth.
“Hydroclimatic Shifts in Northeast Thailand during
the Last Two Millennia - the Record of Lake Pa
Kho.” Quaternary Science Reviews 111 (2015): 62–
71. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.01.007.
Clemmensen, Lars B., Aslaug C. Glad, Kristian W.
T. Hansen, and Andrew S. Murray. “Episodes of
Aeolian Sand Movement on a Large Spit System
(Skagen Odde, Denmark) and North Atlantic
Storminess during the Little Ice Age.” Bulletin of the
Geological Society of Denmark 63 (2015).
Clifford, Michael J., and Robert K. Booth. “Late-
Holocene Drought and Fire Drove a Widespread
Change in Forest Community Composition in
Eastern North America.” The Holocene 25 (2015):
1102–10. doi:10.1177/0959683615580182.
Davi, N. K., R. D’Arrigo, G. C. Jacoby, E. R. Cook, K.
J. Anchukaitis, B. Nachin, M. P. Rao, and C. Leland.
“A Long-Term Context (931–2005 C.E.) for Rapid
16
Fall 2015
Warming over Central Asia.” Quaternary Science
Reviews 121 (2015): 89–97.
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.05.020.
Denniston, Rhawn F., Gabriele Villarini,
Angelique N. Gonzales, Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll,
Victor J. Polyak, Caroline C. Ummenhofer,
Matthew S. Lachniet, et al. “Extreme Rainfall
Activity in the Australian Tropics Reflects
Changes in the El Niño/Southern Oscillation over
the Last Two Millennia.” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 112 (2015): 4576–
81. doi:10.1073/pnas.1422270112.
Douglass, Kristina, and Jens Zinke. “Forging
Ahead By Land and By Sea: Archaeology and
Paleoclimate Reconstruction in Madagascar.”
African Archaeological Review 32 (2015): 267–99.
doi:10.1007/s10437-015-9188-5.
Fedotov, A. P., V. A. Trunova, I. V. Enushchenko,
S. S. Vorobyeva, O. G. Stepanova, S. K.
Petrovskii, M. S. Melgunov, V. V. Zvereva, S. M.
Krapivina, and T. O. Zheleznyakova. “A 850-Year
Record Climate and Vegetation Changes in East
Siberia (Russia), Inferred from Geochemical and
Biological Proxies of Lake Sediments.”
Environmental Earth Sciences 73 (2015): 7297–
7314. doi:10.1007/s12665-014-3906-1.
Feurdean, Angelica, Mariusz Galka, Eliza Kuske,
Ioan Tantau, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Gabriela
Florescu, Johan Liakka, Simon M. Hutchinson,
Andreas Mulch, and Thomas Hickler. “Last
Millennium Hydro-Climate Variability in Central–
Eastern Europe (Northern Carpathians,
Romania).” The Holocene 25 (2015): 1179–92.
doi:10.1177/0959683615580197.
Florian, Christopher R., Gifford H. Miller, Marilyn
L. Fogel, Alexander P. Wolfe, Rolf D. Vinebrooke,
and Aslaug Geirsdottir. “Algal Pigments in Arctic
Lake Sediments Record Biogeochemical Changes
due to Holocene Climate Variability and
Anthropogenic Global Change.” Journal of
Paleolimnology 54 (2015): 53–69.
doi:10.1007/s10933-015-9835-5.

Gajewski, K. “Quantitative Reconstruction of
Holocene Temperatures across the Canadian Arctic
and Greenland.” Global and Planetary Change 128
(2015): 14–23. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2015.02.003.
Keizer, Peter S., Konrad Gajewski, and Robert
McLeman. “Forest Dynamics in Relation to Multi-
Decadal Late-Holocene Climatic Variability,
Eastern Ontario, Canada.” Review of Palaeobotany
and Palynology 219 (2015): 106–15.
doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2015.04.001.
Klesse, Stefan, Malin Ziehmer, Georgios Rousakis,
Valerie Trouet, and David Frank. “Synoptic Drivers
of 400 Years of Summer Temperature and
Precipitation Variability on Mt. Olympus, Greece.”
Climate Dynamics 45 (2015): 807–24.
doi:10.1007/s00382-014-2313-3.
Koch, Johannes. “Little Ice Age and Recent Glacier
Advances in the Cordillera Darwin, Tierra Del
Fuego, Chile.” Anales Del Instituto de La Patagonia
43 (2015): 127–36.
Kotlia, Bahadur Singh, Anoop Kumar Singh, Lalit
Mohan Joshi, and Bachi Singh Dhaila. “Precipitation
Variability in the Indian Central Himalaya during
Last Ca. 4,000 Years Inferred from a Speleothem
Record: Impact of Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM)
and Westerlies.” Quaternary International 371
(2015): 244–53. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.10.066.
Krusic, P. J., E. R. Cook, D. Dukpa, A. E. Putnam, S.
Rupper, and J. Schaefer. “Six Hundred Thirty-Eight
Years of Summer Temperature Variability over the
Bhutanese Himalaya.” Geophysical Research Letters
42 (2015): 2988–94. doi:10.1002/2015GL063566.
Lee, Harry F., David D. Zhang, and Qing Pei.
“Reconstruction of the Geographic Extent of
Drought Anomalies in Northwestern China over the
Last 539 Years and Its Teleconnection with the
Pacific Ocean.” The Holocene 25 (2015): 1271–84.
doi:10.1177/0959683615581203.
Lee, Kyung Eun, and Wonsun Park. “Initiation of
East Asia Monsoon Failure at the Climate Transition
from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice
17
Fall 2015
Age.” Global and Planetary Change 128 (2015):
83–89. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2015.02.012.
Linderholm, Hans W., Jesper Bjorklund, Kristina
Seftigen, Bjorn E. Gunnarson, and Mauricio
Fuentes. “Fennoscandia Revisited: A Spatially
Improved Tree-Ring Reconstruction of Summer
Temperatures for the Last 900 Years.” Climate
Dynamics 45 (2015): 933–47. doi:10.1007/s00382-
014-2328-9.
Li, Xiumei, Jie Liang, Juzhi Hou, and Wenjing
Zhang. “Centennial-Scale Climate Variability
during the Past 2000 Years on the Central Tibetan
Plateau.” The Holocene 25 (2015): 892–99.
doi:10.1177/0959683615572852.
Marchand, Jean-Pierre, Valerie Bonnardot, and
Olivier Planchon. “Laval’s climate in the early
Renaissance An essay in historical geography.”
Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’ouest 122
(2015): 103–33.
Metcalfe, Sarah E., John A. Barron, and Sarah J.
Davies. “The Holocene History of the North
American Monsoon: ‘Known Knowns’ and ‘Known
Unknowns’ in Understanding Its Spatial and
Temporal Complexity.” Quaternary Science
Reviews 120 (2015): 1–27.
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.04.004.
Monti, Luis Medardo, Mario Alejandro Caria, and
Sebastián Moyano. “La influencia de los ríos en la
historia de las ciudades coloniales del noroeste
Argentino: el caso de Ibatín (1565-1686).”
Arqueoweb: Revista Sobre Arqueología En Internet
16 (2015): 223–38.
Mora, K. “Agricultores y ganaderos de la sabana
de Bogotá frente a las fluctuaciones climáticas del
siglo XVIII.” Fronteras de la Historia 20 (2015): (in
press).
O’Donnell, Alison J., Edward R. Cook, Jonathan G.
Palmer, Chris S. M. Turney, Gerald F. M. Page,
and Pauline F. Grierson. “Tree Rings Show
Recent High Summer-Autumn Precipitation in
Northwest Australia Is Unprecedented within the

Last Two Centuries.” PLoS ONE 10, no. 6 (June 3,
2015): e0128533.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128533.
Ocakoğlu, Faruk, Emel Oybak Dönmez, Aydın
Akbulut, Cemal Tunoğlu, Osman Kır, Sanem
Açıkalın, Celal Erayık, İsmail Ömer Yılmaz, and
Suzanne AG Leroy. “A 2800-Year Multi-Proxy
Sedimentary Record of Climate Change from Lake
Çubuk (Göynük, Bolu, NW Anatolia).” The
Holocene (advanced online publication) (August
11, 2015).
Orme, L. C., S. J. Davies, and G. a. T. Duller.
“Reconstructed Centennial Variability of Late
Holocene Storminess from Cors Fochno, Wales,
UK.” Journal of Quaternary Science 30 (2015): 478–
88. doi:10.1002/jqs.2792.
Ortega, Pablo, Flavio Lehner, Didier Swingedouw,
Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Christoph C. Raible,
Mathieu Casado, and Pascal Yiou. “A Model-Tested
North Atlantic Oscillation Reconstruction for the
Past Millennium.” Nature 523 (2015): 71 – +.
doi:10.1038/nature14518.
Peros, Matthew, Braden Gregory, Felipe Matos,
Eduard Reinhardt, and Joseph Desloges. “Late-
Holocene Record of Lagoon Evolution, Climate
Change, and Hurricane Activity from Southeastern
Cuba.” The Holocene 25 (2015): 1483–97.
doi:10.1177/0959683615585844.
Schneider, Lea, Jason E. Smerdon, Ulf Buentgen,
Rob J. S. Wilson, Vladimir S. Myglan, Alexander V.
Kirdyanov, and Jan Esper. “Revising Midlatitude
Summer Temperatures back to AD600 Based on a
Wood Density Network.” Geophysical Research
Letters 42 (2015): 4556–62.
doi:10.1002/2015GL063956.
Shi, Feng, Quansheng Ge, Bao Yang, Jianping Li,
Fengmei Yang, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist,
Olga Solomina, et al. “A Multi-Proxy Reconstruction
of Spatial and Temporal Variations in Asian
Summer Temperatures over the Last Millennium.”
Climatic Change (advanced online publication)
(May 9, 2015): 1–14. doi:10.1007/s10584-015-1413-
18
Fall 2015
3.
Sigl, M., M. Winstrup, J. R. McConnell, K. C.
Welten, G. Plunkett, F. Ludlow, U. Buentgen, et al.
“Timing and Climate Forcing of Volcanic
Eruptions for the Past 2,500 Years.” Nature 523
(2015): 543–49. doi:10.1038/nature14565.
Singh, Dhruv Sen, Anil K. Gupta, S. J. Sangode,
Steven C. Clemens, M. Prakasam, Priyeshu
Srivastava, and Shailendra K. Prajapati.
“Multiproxy Record of Monsoon Variability from
the Ganga Plain during 400-1200 AD.” Quaternary
International 371 (2015): 157–63.
doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.02.040.
Tiwari, Manish, Siddhesh S. Nagoji, and Raja S.
Ganeshram. “Multi-Centennial Scale SST and
Indian Summer Monsoon Precipitation Variability
since the Mid-Holocene and Its Nonlinear
Response to Solar Activity.” The Holocene 25
(2015): 1415–24. doi:10.1177/0959683615585840.
Van Rampelbergh, M., S. Verheyden, M. Allan, Y.
Quinif, H. Cheng, L. R. Edwards, E. Keppens, and
P. Claeys. “A 500-Year Seasonally Resolved Delta
O-18 and Delta C-13, Layer Thickness and Calcite
Aspect Record from a Speleothem Deposited in
the Han-Sur-Lesse Cave, Belgium.” Climate of the
Past 11 (2015): 789–802. doi:10.5194/cp-11-789-
2015.
Wang, Jianglin, Bao Yang, and Fredrik
Charpentier Ljungqvist. “A Millennial Summer
Temperature Reconstruction for the Eastern
Tibetan Plateau from Tree-Ring Width.” Journal of
Climate 28 (2015): 5289–5304. doi:10.1175/JCLI-
D-14-00738.1.
Woodborne, Stephan, Grant Hall, Iain Robertson,
Adrian Patrut, Mathieu Rouault, Neil J. Loader,
and Michele Hofmeyr. “A 1000-Year Carbon
Isotope Rainfall Proxy Record from South African
Baobab Trees (Adansonia Digitata L.).” Plos One
10 (2015): e0124202.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124202.
Xu, Hai, Xinying Zhou, Jianghu Lan, Bin Liu,
 Fall 2015

Enguo Sheng, Keke Yu, Peng Cheng, et al. “Late

Holocene Indian Summer Monsoon Variations
Recorded at Lake Erhai, Southwestern China.”
Quaternary Research 83 (2015): 307–14.
doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2014.12.004.

Yadava, Akhilesh K., Ram R. Yadav, Krishna G.

Misra, Jayendra Singh, and Dhirendra Singh. “Tree
Ring Evidence of Late Summer Warming in Sikkim,
Northeast India.” Quaternary International 371
(2015): 175–80. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.12.067.

Zhang, Rui-bo, Yu-jiang Yuan, Wen-shou Wei, Xiao-

hua Gou, Shu-long Yu, Hua-ming Shang, Feng
Chen, Tong-wen Zhang, and Li Qin.
“Dendroclimatic Reconstruction of Autumn-Winter
Mean Minimum Temperature in the Eastern Tibetan
Plateau since 1600 AD.” Dendrochronologia 33
(2015): 1–7. doi:10.1016/j.dendro.2014.09.001.

Zhao, Kan, Yongjin Wang, R. Lawrence Edwards,

Hai Cheng, Dianbing Liu, and Xinggong Kong. “A
High-Resolved Record of the Asian Summer
Monsoon from Dongge Cave, China for the Past
1200 Years.” Quaternary Science Reviews 122
(2015): 250–57.
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.05.030.

19
 Spring 2016

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