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Published Online March 3, 2005
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1107046

Reports

Submitted on November 2, 2004
Accepted on February 18, 2005

Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records

Johannes Hans Oerlemans 1*

1 Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, Netherlands.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Johannes Hans Oerlemans , E-mail: j.oerlemans{at}phys.uu.nl

A temperature history for different parts of the world has been constructed from 169 glacier length records. Using a first-order theory of glacier dynamics, changes in glacier length were related to changes in temperature. The derived temperature histories are fully independent of proxy and instrumental data used in earlier reconstructions. Moderate global warming started in the middle of the 19th century. The reconstructed warming in the first half of the 20th century is 0.5 K. This warming was remarkably coherent over the globe. The warming signals from glaciers at low and high elevations appear to be very similar.


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)