Reference
Demezhko, D.Yu. and Golovanova, I.V. 2007. Climatic changes in the Urals over the past millennium -- an analysis of geothermal and meteorological data. Climates of the Past 3: 237-242.
Description
The authors used temperature logs obtained from 49 boreholes drilled mainly on the eastern slopes of the Middle and Southern Urals (50-59°N, 58-61°E) to reconstruct a ground surface temperature history of the region over the period AD 800 to about 1980, while they employed surface air temperature data obtained from 43 weather stations in the vicinity of the boreholes -- which they obtained from Russian "Meteorological Bulletins" -- to reconstruct a 170-year history of surface air temperature that extends up to, and slightly through, the end of the 20th century. This work revealed, in their words, that "surface temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period maximum (from 1100 to 1200) were 0.4°C warmer than the mean in the 20th century (from 1900 to 1960)." However, as best we can tell from the graphical representations of their data, temperatures at the end of the 20th century were not significantly different from those of the MWP maximum. Therefore, we classify this study as a Level 2 Study in which peak warmth of the Medieval Warm Period was about the same as the peak warmth of the latter portion of the Current Warm Period.