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Science 29 June 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5833, p. 1844
DOI: 10.1126/science.1140982
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Technical Comments

Comment on "The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years"

Gerd Bürger

Osborn and Briffa (Reports, 10 February 2006, p. 841) identified anomalous periods of warmth or cold in the Northern Hemisphere that were synchronous across 14 temperature-sensitive proxies. However, their finding that the spatial extent of 20th-century warming is exceptional ignores the effect of proxy screening on the corresponding significance levels. After appropriate correction, the significance of the 20th-century warming anomaly disappears.

Freie Universität-Berlin, Institut für Meteorologie, Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 6-10, D-12165 Berlin, Germany.

E-mail: gerd.buerger{at}met.fu-berlin.de

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects.
P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, J.M. Lough, T.D. van Ommen, B.M. Vinther, J. Luterbacher, E.R. Wahl, F.W. Zwiers, M.E. Mann, et al. (2009)
The Holocene 19, 3-49
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