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JOURNAL OF DESERT RESEARCH  2009, Vol. 29 Issue (1): 136-142    DOI:
天气与气候     
An Overview of Studies on Medieval Warm Period
ZUO Xin-xin, JIN He-ling
Key laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
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Abstract  

The Medieval Warm Period is a crucial epoch during last two millennia. In this review a number of lines of evidence are considered in order to evaluate whether this warm event was regional or global, whether it was uniform climatically or synchronized, how warm was the period, precipitation variation and what caused this climate event. Based on large number of research, we hold that this epoch was most likely global rather than regional though we have only a sparse picture of this epoch. The balance of evidence may do point that the period was not warmer than 20th century. Besides, all reconstruction supports an unsustained Medieval warm period. As mentioned precipitation variation, different areas have different wet or dry condition. Precipitation and temperature do have distinct physical characteristics responded the natural forcing. In the end, many reconstructions and simulations indicate that natural factor, such as solar radiation and volcanism can explain most of climatic changes observed during this episode, however the interaction of climatic system can not be ignored. Consequently, it is very important to joint the effect of external and internal factors in decoding the mechanism of climate change. We hope that the following works could be paid more attention: updating old and developing new proxy data, promoting the ways of reconstruction and keeping a scientific attitude toward next research.

Key words:  Medieval Warm Period      overview      proxy      climatic reconstruction     
Received:  10 September 2007      Published:  20 January 2009
ZTFLH:  P532  
Articles by authors
ZUO Xin-xin
JIN He-ling

Cite this article: 

ZUO Xin-xin;JIN He-ling. An Overview of Studies on Medieval Warm Period. JOURNAL OF DESERT RESEARCH, 2009, 29(1): 136-142.

URL: 

http://www.desert.ac.cn/EN/     OR     http://www.desert.ac.cn/EN/Y2009/V29/I1/136

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