Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Temperature record of the past 1000 years
The temperature record of the past 1000 years describes the reconstruction of temperature for the last 1000 years on the Northern Hemisphere. A reconstruction is needed because a reliable surface temperature record exists only since about 1850. Studying past climate is of interest for scientists in order to improve the understanding of current climate variability and, relatedly, providing a better basis for future climate projections. In particular, if the nature and magnitude of natural climate variability can be established, scientists will be better positioned to identify and quantify human generated climate variability. Although temperature reconstructions from proxy data help us understand the character of natural climate variability, attribution of recent climate change relies on a broad range of methodologies in addition to the proxy reconstructions. By far the best observed period is from 1850 to the present day. Over this period the recent instrumental records, mainly based on direct thermometer readings, has approximately global coverage. It shows a general warming in global temperatures.
Related Stories
1
2
Earth & Climate News
September 4, 2026
Sep. 4, 2026 Puerto Rico’s normally rainy season has instead brought a severe and fast-growing drought. By August 25, three-quarters of the territory was in at least moderate drought, with extreme drought covering 44 percent and some areas receiving less than ...
Sep. 4, 2026 A giant iceberg measuring more than 76 square kilometers broke from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier in August 2026, marking the Arctic’s largest glacier calving event since 2020. The berg later slammed into Joe Island but survived without breaking ...
Sep. 3, 2026 Morning glories may be getting caught in an evolutionary tug-of-war between surviving climate change and attracting increasingly scarce pollinators. Over just nine years, researchers found that the plants’ rate of adaptation plunged by 96%, even ...
Sep. 3, 2026 Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico’s largest reservoir, plunged to just 1.4 percent capacity in July 2026 after years of extreme drought and record early snowmelt. The dramatic decline exposed long-submerged debris and underscored the growing ...
Sep. 1, 2026 Rare storms covered huge stretches of Chile’s Atacama Desert in snow and dumped extraordinary amounts of rain on one of the driest regions on Earth. The extreme weather shut down observatories, triggered damaging floods and mudflows, and unfolded ...
Aug. 30, 2026 Hundreds of previously overlooked seismic events have been detected beneath Antarctica, including 245 near the marine edge of the Thwaites Glacier. Many appear to be glacial earthquakes caused when huge icebergs break off, capsize, and collide with ...
Aug. 30, 2026 Researchers have produced a form of Spirulina containing biologically active vitamin B12 at levels comparable to beef. By carefully controlling the light used to grow the algae, they overcame a major problem with conventional Spirulina, which mainly ...
Aug. 29, 2026 Researchers have discovered a way to turn notoriously difficult-to-recycle PVC plastic into a key ingredient used in high-performance lubricants such as engine oil. The technique could give mountains ...
Aug. 29, 2026 Researchers have discovered that Western Australia’s iron-rich rocks can naturally generate hydrogen and that the process may be boosted to produce much larger amounts. If it can be scaled up, the vast formations beneath the Pilbara could become a ...
Aug. 28, 2026 More than 1,000 volunteers buried cotton underwear across Switzerland to help scientists measure how active different soils are. The faster the fabric disappeared, the more biological activity was taking place underground. Gardens showed the fastest ...
Aug. 27, 2026 Beneath the rocky slopes of Mount Timpanogos lies far more ice than anyone walking across the surface might suspect. Researchers used gravity measurements to map the buried glacier in 3D and found it is about 83% ice, with enough frozen water to ...
Aug. 26, 2026 A Manhattan-sized ice island has broken away from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier after years of growing fractures weakened its floating ice tongue. Scientists expect two more huge sections could soon detach, potentially removing about 22 percent of ...
Latest Headlines
updated 12:56 pm ET
Sep. 3, 2026 Deep beneath Mars, scientists have found evidence of enormous magmatic systems once thought to require Earth-like plate tectonics. Seismic measurements suggest molten rock repeatedly evolved and ...
Sep. 2, 2026 NASA-funded studies suggest Earth’s climate has been influenced by both the Sun’s travels through dense regions of the Milky Way and the violent superflares of its youth. Those events may help ...
Aug. 30, 2026 The Juan de Fuca plate beneath northern Oregon appears to be shallower than previously estimated, potentially making shaking from a future Cascadia megathrust earthquake significantly stronger. ...
Aug. 25, 2026 Scientists may have solved the mystery of why Antarctica froze millions of years before the Arctic. Slow-moving waves deep inside Earth gradually lifted East Antarctica, building mountains and a high ...
Aug. 25, 2026 A huge section of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier has snapped off, forming an ice island about the size of Manhattan. Satellites watched cracks spread rapidly before the 76-square-kilometer slab ...
Aug. 25, 2026 Scientists have created a highly efficient catalyst that breaks down stubborn lignin from plant waste into useful chemicals under relatively mild conditions. By revealing exactly how the catalyst ...
Aug. 23, 2026 An abandoned farm field became a flourishing wildflower meadow within little more than a decade, with plant diversity doubling and thousands of orchids appearing naturally. The discovery suggests ...
Aug. 20, 2026 A colossal cliff system created as the supercontinent Rodinia broke apart may have exposed the heart of the Grand Canyon nearly a billion years before the Colorado River carved it. The ancient ...
Aug. 20, 2026 The “Asian Water Tower” is losing roughly 24.2 billion tonnes of groundwater every year, with some of the worst declines hitting densely ...
Aug. 20, 2026 Spain’s total solar eclipse delivered an unexpected sight: a corona glowing gold instead of its usual pearly white. Because the Sun was setting, its light passed through more atmosphere, while ...