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Temperature of North-Central Shaanzi, China, Since AD 1826
Reference
Cai, Q.-F., Liu, Y., Song, H.-M. and Sun, J.-Y. 2008. Tree-ring-based reconstruction of the April to September mean temperature since 1826 AD for north-central Shaanxi Province, China. Science in China Series D Earth Sciences 51: 1099-1106.

What was done
The authors developed an April-September mean temperature history for the north-central Shaanxi Province of China for the period 1826-2004, based on ring-width analyses of 59 tree-ring cores obtained from 30 Pinus tabulaeformis trees growing on Huanglong Mountain in the southeastern part of the Shaanxi Loess Plateau.

What was learned
Cai et al. state that their temperature reconstruction shows an increase since the 1970s. However, they say that "the temperature of [the] last decade is not the highest in the reconstruction," noting that "the highest temperature period in [the] reconstruction is from 1928 to 1933," with 1929 being the warmest year of all. In addition, they report that part of this period overlapped with an extreme drought that has been judged to have been one of the ten worst natural disasters in China in modern history, with drought-induced famines and disease that led to the deaths of some four million people in five provinces.

What it means
Once again, we have another real-world example of the late 20th century not being the warmest period of the last thousand or more years, as climate alarmists are wont to claim it was. And we note that the truly warmest period occurred when there was 20% less CO2 in the air than there is today.

Reviewed 17 June 2009