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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH,
VOL. 111,
D11105,
doi:10.1029/2005JD006810,
2006
Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth century
B. M. Vinther
Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
K. K. Andersen
Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
P. D. Jones
Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
K. R. Briffa
Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
J. Cappelen
Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
At present, continuous instrumental temperature records for Greenland reach back to the late nineteenth century at a few sites.
Combining early observational records from locations along the south and west coasts, it has been possible to extend the overall
record back to the year 1784. The new extended Greenland temperature record is 9% incomplete. There are, however, sufficient
new data (an additional 74 complete winters and 52 complete summers) to provide a valuable indication of late eighteenth century
and nineteenth century seasonal trends. Comparison of the previously published records with additional observational series
digitized from Danish Meteorological Institute Yearbooks has also revealed inhomogeneities in some of the existing twentieth
century temperature records. These problems have been eliminated in the new extended Greenland temperature record. A long
homogeneous west Greenland instrumental temperature record is of great value for the interpretation of the growing number
of Greenland ice core records. A first comparison of the new record with highly resolved Greenland ice core data is presented.
Correlations between west Greenland winter temperatures and the ice core winter season proxy are found to be r = 0.67 and
r = 0.60 for the periods 1785–1872 and 1873–1970, respectively.
Received 24
October
2005;
accepted 28
February
2006;
published 6
June
2006.
Keywords: Greenland;
temperature.
Index Terms: 1616 Global Change: Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513); 1610 Global Change: Atmosphere (0315, 0325); 1621 Global Change: Cryospheric change (0776); 0726 Cryosphere: Ice sheets; 9315 Geographic Location: Arctic region (0718, 4207).
Read Full Article (file size: 788858 bytes) Cited by
Citation: Vinther, B. M., K. K. Andersen, P. D. Jones, K. R. Briffa, and J. Cappelen
(2006),
Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth century,
J. Geophys. Res.,
111,
D11105,
doi:10.1029/2005JD006810.
Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.
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