Articles | Volume 18, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2599-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2599-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| Highlight paper
| 
15 Dec 2022
Research article | Highlight paper |
| 15 Dec 2022
| 15 Dec 2022
Reconstructing Holocene temperatures in time and space using paleoclimate data assimilation
School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University,
Flagstaff, AZ, USA
Nicholas P. McKay
School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University,
Flagstaff, AZ, USA
Nathan Steiger
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Sylvia Dee
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Rice
University, Houston, TX, USA
Chris Hancock
School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University,
Flagstaff, AZ, USA
Ruza F. Ivanovic
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Lauren J. Gregoire
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Paul Valdes
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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- Enhanced mercury deposition in Arctic Alaskan lake sediments coincides with early Holocene hydroclimate shift M. Griffore et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.178440
- Nonlinear precipitation patterns in the Mediterranean and Middle East: insights from ERA5 reanalysis (1940–2024) H. Tatli https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-025-12412-z
Saved (final revised paper)
Latest update: 09 Jun 2026
Editorial statement
The manuscript presents a reconstruction of global temperature spanning the Holocene, which extends the scope of previous exercises in palaeoclimate data assimilation. The resulting reconstruction presents new insights into changes in global temperature over this period. Most notably, it confirms the results of previous studies that have shown a global cooling trend over the past 6,000 years. It also shows that a cooling trend is found even after allowing for potential biases in the proxies. These results are likely to be of considerable interest to the broader geoscience community.
The manuscript presents a reconstruction of global temperature spanning the Holocene, which...
Short summary
To look at climate over the past 12 000 years, we reconstruct spatial temperature using natural climate archives and information from model simulations. Our results show mild global mean warmth around 6000 years ago, which differs somewhat from past reconstructions. Undiagnosed seasonal biases in the data could explain some of the observed temperature change, but this still would not explain the large difference between many reconstructions and climate models over this period.
To look at climate over the past 12 000 years, we reconstruct spatial temperature using natural...
