Climate History Network

The study of lakes in the Svalbard Islands, published in Geology and reported on the Earth Institute website, recreates 1,800 years of data at decadal to multi-decadal resolution using the biological properties of algae buried in sediments.  The results show modern warming easily in excess of records reached in the Medieval Warm Period.  The study also indicates that summers during the Little Ice Age were not especially cold, suggesting that the glacial expansion of the period may have been due to higher winter precipitation.