Description
Working with a sediment core extracted from the northern East China Sea (31.68°N, 125.81°E) in June of 2006, the authors employed the alkenone paleotemperature index U^k'37 -- together with the Muller et al. (1998) calibration equation -- to construct a sea surface temperature history of that region covering the past 3600 years. And of this period, as they describe it, "the highest temperature was 22.7°C which was recorded at 1.01 cal ka BP," about three-fifths of the way through the Medieval Warm Period. And since they note that cooling prevailed "from 0.85 cal. ka BP to present," at which latter point they indicated a temperature of 19.78°C, we calculate that the peak warmth of the MWP was 2.9°C greater than the mean warmth of the first decade of the 21st century, which is often touted as being the warmest decade of the instrumental period.