The results of this exercise revealed, in the words of the five scientists who conducted it, that "late 20th- and early 21st-century European climate [was] very likely warmer than that of any time during the past 500 years," while "the 19th century was the coldest of the last half-millennium."  Clearly, therefore, the 19th- to 20th-century temperature transition was one of great significance to Europe; but to gain a better feel for both its nature and significance, we need to acquire more detail about its temporal progression.

Some of this information can be found in the study of Battarbee et al. (2002), who collected and analyzed the results of a number of individual studies that employed a variety of palaeolimnological techniques in reconstructing 200-year temperature histories of seven remote mountain lakes in Europe: Ovre Neadalsvatn (Norway), Saanajarvi (Finland), Gossenkollesee (Austria), Hagelseewli (Switzerland), Jezero v Ledvici (Slovenia), Estany Redo (Spain, Pyrenees), and Nizne Terianske Pleso (Slovakia), which lakes were chosen on the basis of their being "as free from disturbance by human activity as possible."

The work of Battarbee et al. revealed that during the 19th century the seven mountain lake sites experienced either general cooling or no trend in temperature.  During the 20th century, on the other hand, they report that "all sites show a warming trend during the first few decades of the century," which peaked between 1930 and 1950.  Thereafter, all of the sites again depict cooling, followed by a steep warming over the last ten to twenty years of the record.  However, for only two of the seven sites does the final warming lead to temperatures that are higher than those of the 1930s and 40s.  Of the remaining five sites, three of them end up being cooler than they were at or just prior to mid-century, while two of them end up exhibiting about the same temperature.  Hence, it would appear that the bulk of the temperature increase experienced by Europe in recovering from the cold of the Little Ice Age took place over the first third to one-half of the 20th century, well before the bulk of mankind's industrial-era CO2 emissions to the atmosphere had occurred.

In an even broader study of eleven remote mountain lakes of Europe, including the seven studied by Battarbee et al., Agusti-Panareda and Thompson (2002) constructed 216-year temperature histories based on multiple regressions they developed between twenty monthly lowland air temperature series for the period 1781-1997 and nine monthly upland air temperature series of at least 30 years' duration.  This technique revealed, in their words, that "during the period 1801-1900, the western European lakes show no significant trend whereas annual mean air temperatures at the eastern European lakes decrease significantly."  For the period 1901-1997, on the other hand, they note there is a warming trend "at all but the Fennoscandian lakes."

Even more interesting is what one learns when the earliest 20 years of data from 1781-1801 are added to the rest of the temperature series.  In terms of sliding decadal averages, four of the lakes depict net increases in air temperature over the 216-year period, as one would expect for a world that had just experienced a century of what climate alarmists are fond of calling "unprecedented" global warming.  Three of the lakes, however, exhibit no net change in temperature; and four of them actually depict net cooling.  Considered in their totality, these four warmings, four coolings, and three no changes add up to pretty much of a "no sale" for the climate alarmists who are attempting to sell the world a bill of global warming goods.  If close to a dozen European arctic and alpine lakes are no warmer now than they were during a short period of time back at the "beginning of the end" of the Little Ice Age, when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were 100 ppm less than they are nowadays, there is surely no reason to presume that a similar modern period of warmth need be caused by the CO2 increase we have experienced in the interim.

One final study of much of Europe that warrants mention is that of Balling et al. (1998), who examined temperature trends for 57 locations distributed across the continent for the period 1751 to 1995.  Over this 245-year time interval, temperatures rose by approximately 0.5°C. Breaking the period down into a number of shorter segments, a small insignificant cooling was observed from 1751 to 1890, followed by a warming trend to 1950, with cooling thereafter to the mid-1970s and warming to the end of the record.  Once again, therefore, real-world data demonstrate that the major period of Little Ice Age to Modern Warm Period warming occurred over the first half of the 20th century, well in advance of the majority of mankind's industrial-era CO2 emissions.

References
Agusti-Panareda, A. and Thompson, R.  2002.  Reconstructing air temperature at eleven remote alpine and arctic lakes in Europe from 1781 to 1997 AD.  Journal of Paleolimnology 28: 7-23.

Balling, R.C. Jr., Vose, R.S., and Weber, G.-R.  1998.  Analysis of long-term European temperature records: 1751-1995.  Climate Research 10: 193-200.

Battarbee, R.W., Grytnes, J.-A., Thompson, R., Appleby, P.G., Catalan, J., Korhola, A., Birks, H.J.B., Heegaard, E. and Lami, A.  2002.  Comparing palaeolimnological and instrumental evidence of climate change for remote mountain lakes over the last 200 years.  Journal of Paleolimnology 28: 161-179.

Luterbacher, J., Dietrich, D., Xoplaki, E., Grosjean, M. and Wanner, H.  2004.  European seasonal and annual temperature variability, trends, and extremes since 1500.  Science 303: 1499-1503.