The IPCC’s reductive Common Era temperature history
Abstract
Common Era temperature variability has been a prominent component in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports over the last several decades and was twice featured in their Summary for Policymakers. A single reconstruction of mean Northern Hemisphere temperature variability was first highlighted in the 2001 Summary for Policymakers, despite other estimates that existed at the time. Subsequent reports assessed many large-scale temperature reconstructions, but the entirety of Common Era temperature history in the most recent Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was restricted to a single estimate of mean annual global temperatures. We argue that this focus on a single reconstruction is an insufficient summary of our understanding of temperature variability over the Common Era. We provide a complementary perspective by offering an alternative assessment of the state of our understanding in high-resolution paleoclimatology for the Common Era and call for future reports to present a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of our knowledge about this important period of human and climate history.
Citation
Esper , J , Smerdon , J E , Anchukaitis , K J , Allen , K , Cook , E R , D’Arrigo , R , Guillet , S , Ljungqvist , F C , Reinig , F , Schneider , L , Sigl , M , Stoffel , M , Trnka , M , Wilson , R & Büntgen , U 2024 , ' The IPCC’s reductive Common Era temperature history ' , Communications Earth & Environment , vol. 5 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01371-1
Publication
Communications Earth & Environment
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2662-4435Type
Journal article
Description
J.E. acknowledges support by the Gutenberg Research College, J.E. M.T. and U.B. by the project AdAgrif (CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004635) and ERC (AdG 882727), J.E.S. by the US NSF (OISE-1743738, AGS-2101214 and AGS-2303352), K.J.A. by the US NSF (AGS-1803946 and AGS-2102993), K.A. by the ARC (FT200100102), R.D. by the US NSF (OPP-2112314, OPP-2124885, and AGS-2102759), S.G and M. Stoffel by the SNSF (Sinergia CRSII5_183571), F.C.L. by the SRC (grant no. 2018-01272), Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (grant no. MMW 2022-0114) and Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (Pro Futura Scientia XIII Fellow), LS by the German Research Foundation (SCHN 1645/1-1), M. Sigl by the ERC (CoG 820047), and R.W. by the NSF-NERC (NE/W007223/1).Collections
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