Warming summers

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/hu-nrh041113.php

Public release date: 11-Apr-2013
Contact: Peter Reuell
Harvard University
New research helps place modern temperatures into a more complete statistical framework

Harvard researchers are adding statistical nuance to our understanding of how modern and historical temperatures compare.

Through developing a statistical model of Arctic temperature and how it relates to instrumental and proxy records derived from trees, ice cores, and lake sediments, Martin Tingley, a research associate in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Peter Huybers, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, have shown that the warmest summers in the last two decades are unprecedented in the previous six centuries. Their work is described in an April 11 paper published in Nature.

"We call upon multiple proxies---including those derived from trees, ice cores, and lake sediments---to reconstruct temperature back through time using a Bayesian statistical approach," Tingley said. "What we are trying to do is put statistical inference of past changes in temperature on a more solid and complete footing."

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