Do Tree Stumps Indicate the HTM was Warmer than Today?
If you look at any reconstruction of global mean temperatures covering the entirety of the Holocene, you'll see that the 21st century is warmer than the mean reconstructed temperatures for any point during the Holocene. Now proxy-only reconstructions (Kaufman, Shakun, Marcott) show a warmer Holocene Thermal Maximum than data assimilation approaches (Osman, Erb), and the CI for the HTM is wide enough in Kaufman's reconstruction to allow a small possibility that some years were warmer during the HTM were than they are today, but the evidence is clear that the recent warming spike is unprecedented in the Holocene, and temperatures are likely warmer today than any time during the Holocene. Attempts by contrarian influencers to undermine this conclusion have been substantial but unconvincing and frequently disingenuous. For instance, Javier Vinós manipulated Marcott's proxy data to make the difference between the Little Ice Age (LIA) and the HTM about 2x warmer than what was ...
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