Current European temperature highest in last 500 years

Eugene S. Takle
© 2004

Reconstruction of seasonal and annual temperatures for Europe from proxy data (ice cores, tree rings, speleothems, varved sediments, and borehole subsurface temperatures) indicate current temperatures are the warmest in the last 500 years (Luterbacher, et al., 2004). These results corroborate hemispheric-wide evidence previously reported for the last 1000 years. The lowest Europe-wide temperatures during this period were from 1708-09, and the highest were in the late 20^th century, with the summer of 2003 being by far the hottest.

Reference

Luterbacher, J., and Co-authors, 2004: European seasonal and annual temperature variability, trends and extremes since 1500. Science, 303, 1499-1503.