Raspopov et al. (2004) analyzed two temperature-related data sets that address the issue of climate change in Northern Europe.  They describe the first set as "a direct and systematic air temperature record for the Kola Peninsula, in the vicinity of Murmansk," which covers the period 1880-2000, while they describe the second set as an "annual tree-ring series generalized for 10 regions (Lovelius, 1997) along the northern timberline, from the Kola Peninsula to Chukotka, for the period 1458-1975 in the longitude range from 30°E to 170°E."  Their presentation of the latter data set clearly shows that the region's thermal recovery from the coldest temperatures of the Little Ice Age may be considered to have commenced as early as 1820 and was in full swing by at least 1840.  In addition, it shows that the rising temperature peaked just prior to 1950 and then declined to the end of the record in 1975.  Thereafter, however, the Kola-Murmansk instrumental record indicates a significant temperature rise that peaked in the early 1990s at about the same level as the pre-1950 peak; but after that time, the temperature once again declined and continued dropping to the end of the record in 2000.

Also working in northern Russia, Kozlov and Berlina (2002) examined several phenological variables in a search for possible changes in the length of the growing season within the taiga forests of that region over the period 1930 to 1998.  In this endeavor, they found that the date of permanent snow cover in the forests began 13 days earlier at the end of their study period than at its beginning.  In addition, snow around tree-trunks was found to melt 16 days later in the spring at the end of the record.  The duration of the snow-free period in the forests also decreased by 20 days over the 68-year period, while the ice-free period of lakes decreased by 15 days.

According to Kozlov and Berlina, these results "clearly contradict the expected regional warming" that is championed by believers in the CO2-enhanced greenhouse effect.  In fact, their data represented such a dramatic contradiction of the climate-alarmist dogma that the two scientists seriously wondered whether something was wrong with their data.  However, as they note, "close scrutiny of the original records, protocols, and other relevant information did not reveal any possible source of error."  Thus, they ultimately and confidently concluded that the length of the growing season on the Kola Peninsula "really declined during the past 60 years due to both delayed spring and advanced autumn/winter."

In Sweden, Gunnarson and Linderholm (2002) worked with living and subfossil Scots pine trees sampled close to the present-day tree-line in the central Scandinavian Mountains, developing a continuous 1,091-year tree-ring width chronology running from AD 909 to 1998, which they determined to be a good proxy for summer temperatures in the region of their study.  These data, in their words, "support evidence for a 'Medieval Warm Period,' where growth conditions were favorable in the tenth and early eleventh centuries."  They also show that the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period was both greater and longer-lasting than that of the Modern Warm Period, which their data depict as having peaked around 1950.

Gunnarson and Linderholm also state that their chronology "does not show the continuous temperature decrease from AD 1000 to 1900 followed by a distinct increase during the twentieth century" that the hockeystick temperature history of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) does.  "On the contrary," as they put it, their chronology "displays a positive trend from the middle of the seventeenth century, culminating around 1950, followed by strongly decreasing growth."  Hence, not only was the Modern Warm Period in the Scandinavian Mountains not as warm as the earlier Medieval Warm Period, the way in which it developed was also different from the way in which the hockeystick record implies it developed.

Also working in Sweden, Klingbjer and Moberg (2003) analyzed "previously unexplored observational temperature data for the period 1802-62 from Overtornea and Kalix in the Tornedalen area of subarctic Sweden (~66°N)," together with similar data from the nearby Haparanda weather station, to develop "a continuous Tornedalen temperature series" that stretches from 1802 to 2002.  Over this two-century period, they found that mean annual air temperature rose by 1.97°C, reaching a peak that "culminated in the 1930s," such that "the warmest decade was the 1930s."

Pretty much the same story is told by data that Klingbjer and Moberg present for Vardo, Oulu, St. Petersburg, Uppsala and Helsinki; for when the temperature trends of these five sites are averaged together, they too show little to no net warming since the 1930s.  Moreover, in an analysis of data obtained from local meteorological stations and from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pertaining to Finnish Lapland, Lee et al. (2000) determined "there has been no significant warming or cooling during the entire period 1876-1993 for the annual data and the seasonal temperature data."

In a more extensive analysis of Finnish Lapland's thermal history, Helama et al. (2002) reconstructed midsummer temperatures for the last 7500 years using the long ring-width chronology of Scots pine from northern Finland that was derived by Eronen et al. (2002).  In doing so, they found that the 20th century was indeed warmer (by about 0.6°C) than the mean of the entire record.  However, there were three other hundred-year periods that were warmer still: 600-500 BC, 300-200 BC and AD 1500-1600.  Likewise, the difference between the mean temperatures of the 20th and 19th centuries was large; but the difference between the mean temperatures of the 16th and 15th centuries was of the same magnitude, while there were three other century-to-century warmings that were even greater.  Consequently, and in contrast to the climate-alarmist claim that 20th-century global warming was unprecedented over the past one to two millennia, in terms of both its rate of temperature rise and the ultimate level of temperature reached, the Finnish Lapland record tells a very different story.  In addition, the finer-scale record of Eronen et al. (2002) indicates that the apex of 20th-century warmth occurred near the mid-century point, and not at its end, as it does in the hockeystick record of Mann et al.

It should perhaps be noted in this regard, however, that Finnish Lapland is but one small part of the world.  But it is not the only "one small part of the world" to exhibit such thermal behavior.  We have reported on many additional such places on our website; and Helama et al. mention a few others, noting that "the warmth reconstructed here for AD 1561-1570 overlaps with the warm 20-year period previously reported in northern Sweden (Briffa et al., 1995)," and stating that "coinciding with reported warmth in northwest Siberia (Briffa et al., 1995) are our warm periods in AD 1541-1570 and 1931-1960."

We also note in this regard that the peak warmth of the mid-1500s corresponds closely in time with what we have called the Little Medieval Warm Period, which has been identified in the proxy climate records of a number of other locations.  Hence, it is beginning to appear that one need only travel back in time a mere 500 years to find a number of places around the world that were significantly warmer than they are today.  And since there was much less CO2 in the air at those times than there is currently, whatever made so much of the world so warm during that earlier era could well be doing the same today, without any help from the elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations of the present.

But to return to our story, out in left field, as it were, sits Iceland, considerably detached from the rest of Northern Europe.  Nevertheless, the island nation shares many of the same climatic characteristics as the northern portion of the continental mainland, as revealed in the study of Hanna et al. (2004), who assembled and analyzed several climatic variables measured there over the past century, in an effort to see if there was any "possible evidence of recent climatic changes."

With respect to temperature, Hanna et al. found that all of the locations they examined for this variable experienced a net warming since the mid-1800s.  This warming, however, was not linear over the entire time period investigated.  Rather, temperatures rose from their coldest levels in the mid-1800s to their warmest levels in the 1930s, whereupon they remained fairly constant for approximately three decades.  Then came a period of rapid cooling, which ultimately gave way to the warming of the 1980s and 90s.  However, the warming of the past two decades has not resulted in temperatures rising above those of the 1930s.  Indeed, Hanna et al. state emphatically that "the 1990s was definitely not the warmest decade of the 20th century in Iceland."  In fact, a linear trend fit to the post-1930 data actually indicate an overall temperature decrease since that time.

We conclude our review of the thermal history of Northern Europe with a synopsis of the study of Jones et al. (2002), who examined several recently-produced 200- to 250-year European daily and monthly climatic series.  They report that "for northern Europe (Fennoscandia), growing seasons were clearly warmer before about 1860, with only the late 1930s of recent times reaching the earlier levels."  To this they add that "relative warmth in central Europe and to a lesser extent in Central England is also seen pre-1860, although a number of recent decades are as warm."  Last of all, they note that "when annual average temperatures are considered, all three series show slight long-term warming."  However, they note that "all of the annual warming is being experienced in the cold season," adding that there is a "lack of long-term warming in the 'summer' series."

Clearly, the story told by these data is certainly not one of rapidly-developing thermal catastrophe, as so many climate-alarmists and politicians (ironically located in Europe) would have one believe.  Northern Europe was not even as warm at the end of the past century as it was in the late 1930s, which were about as warm as it was prior to 1860.  Central Europe and Central England, on the other hand, were slightly warmer, but only in the winter, and it is a well-established fact that the cold of winter kills far more people in Europe (and almost everywhere else) than does the heat of summer (see, for example, Health Effects (Temperature) in our Subject Index).  Hence, it should be clear to most everyone that something drastically different from real-world data is driving the climatic paranoia that is currently so prevalent in EU governmental circles.

Considering these several observations from the northern reaches of Europe, it would appear that in this particular part of the planet, which according to most climate models is supposed to be especially inclined to warm in response to atmospheric CO2 enrichment, there was precious little increase in temperature over the past half-century or more, over which period the atmosphere experienced a dramatic increase in CO2 concentration that pushed it to levels not previously experienced for millions of years.  And in light of this fact, it is difficult to understand how anyone in his or her right mind could possibly believe in the claims of those who say mankind's enriching of the air with CO2 is a greater threat - to the biosphere, to humanity, to civilization, to whatever - than either world terror or potential nuclear warfare.  Clearly, it just ain't so.

References
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Eronen, M., Zetterberg, P., Briffa, K.R., Lindholm, M., Merilainen, J. and Timonen, M.  2002.  The supra-long Scots pine tree-ring record for Finnish Lapland: Part 1, chronology construction and initial inferences.  The Holocene 12: 673-680.

Gunnarson, B.E. and Linderholm, H.W.  2002.  Low-frequency summer temperature variation in central Sweden since the tenth century inferred from tree rings.  The Holocene 12: 667-671.

Hanna, H., Jónsson, T. and Box, J.E.  2004.  An analysis of Icelandic climate since the nineteenth century.  International Journal of Climatology 24: 1193-1210.

Helama, S., Lindholm, M., Timonen, M., Merilainen, J,. and Eronen, M.  2002.  The supra-long Scots pine tree-ring record for Finnish Lapland: Part 2, interannual to centennial variability in summer temperatures for 7500 years.  The Holocene 12: 681-687.

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Kozlov, M.V. and Berlina, N.G.  2002.  Decline in length of the summer season on the Kola Peninsula, Russia.  Climatic Change 54: 387-398.

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Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K.  1999.  Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations.  Geophysical Research Letters 26: 759-762.

Raspopov, O.M., Dergachev, V.A. and Kolstrom, T.  2004.  Periodicity of climate conditions and solar variability derived from dendrochronological and other palaeoclimatic data in high latitudes.  Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 209: 127-139.