A study by an international team of scientists led by Germany's Potsdam-based Alfred Wegener Institute was published in September in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. It's a temperature reconstruction from the Siberian Arctic. By examining pollen, the scientists were able to determine the July temperatures for the transition zone between tundra and taiga over the last 12,000, i.e. the Holocene.
Now here's the surprising result (quoted from the study's abstract) my emphasis:
Die kalte Sonne site's reaction:A climate reconstruction based on fossil pollen spectra from a Siberian Arctic lake sediment core spanning the Holocene yielded cold conditions for the Late Glacial (1 - 2 °C below present T-July). Warm and moist conditions were reconstructed for the early to mid Holocene (2 °C higher T-July than present), and climate conditions similar to modern ones were reconstructed for the last 4000 years. In conclusion, our modern pollen data set fills the gap of existing regional calibration sets with regard to the underrepresented Siberian tundra - taiga transition zone. The Holocene climate reconstruction indicates that the temperature deviation from modern values was only moderate despite the assumed Arctic sensitivity to present climate change."
One exciting result: Today's summer temperatures are hardly different from the values of the last several thousand years and are even below those for much of the post ice-age time. The otherwise publicity hungry AWI unfortunately failed to even publish a press release on this remarkable new study."
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