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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 24, NO. 15, PAGES 1947–1950, 1997

Late Quaternary Temperature Changes Seen in World-Wide Continental Heat Flow Measurements

Shaopeng Huang

Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1063


Henry N. Pollack

Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1063


Po Yu Shen

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, N6A 5B7, Canada


Abstract

Analysis of more than six thousand continental heat flow measurements as a function of depth has yielded a reconstruction of a global average ground surface temperature history over the last 20,000 years. The early to mid-Holocene appears as a relatively long warm interval some 0.2-0.6 K above present-day temperatures, the culmination of the warming that followed the end of the last glaciation. Temperatures were also warmer than present 500-1,000 years ago, but then cooled to a minimum some 0.2-0.7 K below present about 200 years ago. Although temperature variations in this type of reconstruction are highly smoothed, the results clearly resemble the broad outlines of late Quaternary climate changes suggested by proxies.

Received 22 April 1997; accepted 13 June 1997.

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Citation: Huang, S., H. N. Pollack, and P. Y. Shen (1997), Late Quaternary Temperature Changes Seen in World-Wide Continental Heat Flow Measurements, Geophys. Res. Lett., 24(15), 1947–1950.