TY - JOUR
T1 - The influence of decision-making in tree ring-based climate reconstructions
AU - Büntgen, Ulf
AU - Allen, Kathy
AU - Anchukaitis, Kevin J.
AU - Arseneault, Dominique
AU - Boucher, Étienne
AU - Bräuning, Achim
AU - Chatterjee, Snigdhansu
AU - Cherubini, Paolo
AU - Churakova (Sidorova), Olga V.
AU - Corona, Christophe
AU - Gennaretti, Fabio
AU - Grießinger, Jussi
AU - Guillet, Sebastian
AU - Guiot, Joel
AU - Gunnarson, Björn
AU - Helama, Samuli
AU - Hochreuther, Philipp
AU - Hughes, Malcolm K.
AU - Huybers, Peter
AU - Kirdyanov, Alexander V.
AU - Krusic, Paul J.
AU - Ludescher, Josef
AU - Meier, Wolfgang J.H.
AU - Myglan, Vladimir S.
AU - Nicolussi, Kurt
AU - Oppenheimer, Clive
AU - Reinig, Frederick
AU - Salzer, Matthew W.
AU - Seftigen, Kristina
AU - Stine, Alexander R.
AU - Stoffel, Markus
AU - St. George, Scott
AU - Tejedor, Ernesto
AU - Trevino, Aleyda
AU - Trouet, Valerie
AU - Wang, Jianglin
AU - Wilson, Rob
AU - Yang, Bao
AU - Xu, Guobao
AU - Esper, Jan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - Tree-ring chronologies underpin the majority of annually-resolved reconstructions of Common Era climate. However, they are derived using different datasets and techniques, the ramifications of which have hitherto been little explored. Here, we report the results of a double-blind experiment that yielded 15 Northern Hemisphere summer temperature reconstructions from a common network of regional tree-ring width datasets. Taken together as an ensemble, the Common Era reconstruction mean correlates with instrumental temperatures from 1794–2016 CE at 0.79 (p < 0.001), reveals summer cooling in the years following large volcanic eruptions, and exhibits strong warming since the 1980s. Differing in their mean, variance, amplitude, sensitivity, and persistence, the ensemble members demonstrate the influence of subjectivity in the reconstruction process. We therefore recommend the routine use of ensemble reconstruction approaches to provide a more consensual picture of past climate variability.
AB - Tree-ring chronologies underpin the majority of annually-resolved reconstructions of Common Era climate. However, they are derived using different datasets and techniques, the ramifications of which have hitherto been little explored. Here, we report the results of a double-blind experiment that yielded 15 Northern Hemisphere summer temperature reconstructions from a common network of regional tree-ring width datasets. Taken together as an ensemble, the Common Era reconstruction mean correlates with instrumental temperatures from 1794–2016 CE at 0.79 (p < 0.001), reveals summer cooling in the years following large volcanic eruptions, and exhibits strong warming since the 1980s. Differing in their mean, variance, amplitude, sensitivity, and persistence, the ensemble members demonstrate the influence of subjectivity in the reconstruction process. We therefore recommend the routine use of ensemble reconstruction approaches to provide a more consensual picture of past climate variability.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-23627-6
DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-23627-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 34099683
AN - SCOPUS:85107533760
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 12
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 3411
ER -