Abstract
Recent global temperature reconstructions for the current interglacial period (the Holocene, beginning 11,700 years ago) have generated contrasting trends. This Review examines evidence from indicators and drivers of global change, as inferred from proxy records and simulated by climate models, to evaluate whether anthropogenic global warming was preceded by a long-term warming trend or by global cooling. Multimillennial-scale cooling before industrialization requires extra climate forcing and major climate feedbacks that are not well represented in most climate models at present. Conversely, global warming before industrialization challenges proxy-based reconstructions of past climate. The resolution of this conundrum has implications for contextualizing post-industrial warming and for understanding climate sensitivity to several forcings and their attendant feedbacks, including greenhouse gases. From a large variety of available evidence, we find support for a relatively mild millennial-scale global thermal maximum during the mid-Holocene, but more research is needed to firmly resolve the conundrum and to advance our understanding of slow-moving climate variability.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
All of the data used for this Review are from published literature, as cited in the text.
References
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). IPCC summary for policymakers. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. et al.) 3–32 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).
Fischer, H. et al. Palaeoclimate constraints on the impact of 2 °C anthropogenic warming and beyond. Nat. Geosci. 11, 474–485 (2018). Review of warm periods over the past 3.5 million years, including a comparison of proxy data and model simulations and a discussion of climate feedbacks that can enhance warming.
Kaufman, D. S. & McKay, N. P. Technical Note: Past and future warming – direct comparison on multi-century timescales. Clim. Past 18, 911–917 (2022).
Rockström, J. et al. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecol. Soc. 14, 32 (2019).
Lüning, S. & Vahrenholt, F. Paleoclimatological context and reference level of the 2°C and 1.5°C Paris Agreement long-term temperature limits. Front. Earth Sci. 5, 104 (2017).
Marcott, S. A., Shakun, J. D., Clark, P. U. & Mix, A. C. A reconstruction of regional and global temperature for the past 11,300 years. Science 339, 1198–1201 (2013). The first reconstruction of GMST based on a compilation of globally distributed terrestrial and marine proxy datasets shows evidence for a global HTM. Note: we added 0.3 °C to the GMST reconstructed by Marcott et al. to account for their warmer reference period.
Liu, Z. et al. The Holocene temperature conundrum. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 111, E3501–E3505 (2014). Coined the term ‘Holocene temperature conundrum’ to describe the mismatch between most climate models that simulate a warming trend during the Holocene, in contrast to proxy data that show gradual cooling during the second half of the Holocene (before industrialization).
Bova, S., Rosenthal, Y., Liu, Z., Godad, S. P. & Yan, M. Seasonal origin of the thermal maxima at the Holocene and the last interglacial. Nature 589, 548–553 (2021). Presents a large-scale temperature reconstruction, with no global HTM, based on the assumption that sea-surface proxy records are controlled by local seasonal insolation.
Thompson, A. J., Zhu, J., Poulsen, C. J., Tierney, J. E. & Skinner, C. B. Northern Hemisphere vegetation change drives a Holocene thermal maximum. Sci. Adv. 8, eabj6535 (2022). Experiments using the Community Earth System Model show that expanded Northern Hemisphere vegetation at 6 ka increases GMST by about 0.7 °C, in broad agreement with proxy records.
Liu, Y. et al. A possible role of dust in resolving the Holocene temperature conundrum. Sci. Rep. 8, 4434 (2018).
Osman, M. B. et al. Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature 599, 239–244 (2021). A data assimilation reconstruction of GMST for the past 24 kyr, based on sea-surface temperatures derived from proxy system models combined with time-slice model simulations, shows slight warming across the middle and late Holocene.
Erb, M. P. et al. Reconstructing Holocene temperatures in time and space using paleoclimate data assimilation. Clim. Past 18, 2599–2629 (2022). A Holocene data assimilation reconstruction based on the Temp12k database and transient model simulations shows a minor global HTM and cooling between 6 ka and the preindustrial period.
Steig, E. J. Mid-Holocene climate change. Science 286, 1485–1487 (1999).
Wanner, H., Mercolli, L., Grosjean, M. & Ritz, S. P. Holocene climate variability and change; a data-based review. J. Geol. Soc. 172, 254–263 (2015).
Harrison, S. P. et al. Evaluation of CMIP5 palaeo-simulations to improve climate projections. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 735 (2015).
Hou, J., Li, C.-G. & Lee, S. The temperature record of the Holocene: progress and controversies. Sci. Bull. 64, 565–566 (2019).
Klimenko, V. V., Klimanov, V. A. & Fedorov, M. V. The history of the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere over the last 11000 years. Dokl. Earth Sci. 348, 626–629 (1995).
Kaufman, D. S. et al. Holocene thermal maximum in the western Arctic (0–180°W). Quat. Sci. Rev. 23, 529–560 (2004).
Herzschuh, U. et al. Regional pollen-based Holocene temperature and precipitation patterns depart from the Northern Hemisphere mean trends. Preprint at EGUsphere https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-127 (2022).
Cartapanis, O., Jonkers, L., Moffa-Sanchez, P., Jaccard, S. L. & de Vernal, A. Complex spatio-temporal structure of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Nat. Commun. 13, 5662 (2022).
Crucifix, M., Loutre, M. F., Tulkens, P., Fichefet, T. & Berger, A. Climate evolution during the Holocene: a study with an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. Clim. Dyn. 19, 43–60 (2002).
Renssen, H., Seppa, H., Crosta, X., Goosse, H. & Roche, D. M. Global characterization of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Quat. Sci. Rev. 48, 7–19 (2012).
Zhang, Y., Renssen, H., Seppä, H. & Valdes, P. Holocene temperature trends in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere based on inter-model comparisons. J. Quat. Sci. 33, 464–476 (2018).
Wright, H. E. Jr et al. (eds) Global Climates Since the Last Glacial Maximum (Univ. Minnesota Press, 1993).
Lorenz, S. J. et al. Orbitally driven insolation forcing on Holocene climate trends: evidence from alkenone data and climate modeling. Paleoceanography 21, PA1002 (2006).
Ljungqvist, F. C. The spatio-temporal pattern of the mid-Holocene thermal maximum. Geografie 116, 91–110 (2011).
Wanner, H. Late-Holocene: cooler or warmer? Holocene 31, 1501–1506 (2021).
Brierley, C. M. et al. Large-scale features and evaluation of the PMIP4-CMIP6 midHolocene simulations. Clim. Past 16, 1847–1872 (2020). Mid-Holocene model simulations from the PMIP4 experimental protocol show an ensemble mean GMST change of −0.3 °C relative to preindustrial control runs.
Ganopolski, A., Kubatzki, C., Claussen, M., Borvkin, V. & Petoukhov, V. The influence of vegetation-atmosphere-ocean interaction on climate during the mid-Holocene. Science 280, 1916–1919 (1998). A coupled atmosphere–ocean–vegetation model shows that, during the mid-Holocene (6 ka), changes in boreal summer insolation, vegetation cover, sea-ice cover and ocean circulation contribute to global HTM.
Otto-Bliesner, B. L. et al. The PMIP4 contribution to CMIP6 – part 2: two interglacials, scientific objective and experimental design for Holocene and Last Interglacial simulations. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 3979–4003 (2017).
Chen, D. et al. Framing, context, and methods. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. et al.) 147–286 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).
Schmidt, G. A. et al. Using palaeo-climate comparisons to constrain future projections in CMIP5. Clim. Past 10, 221–250 (2014).
Kaufman, D. et al. Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach. Sci. Data 7, 201 (2020). Several palaeoclimate reconstruction methods applied to an extensive compilation of terrestrial and marine proxy datasets show a global HTM, followed by global cooling from around 6.5 ka until industrialization (Temp12k reconstruction).
Kaufman, D. et al. A global database of Holocene paleotemperature records. Sci. Data 7, 115 (2020). A database of quality-controlled, globally distributed temperature proxy datasets used to create the Temp12k reconstruction.
Zhang, W., Wu, H., Geng, J. & Cheng, J. Model-data divergence in global seasonal temperature response to astronomical insolation during the Holocene. Sci. Bull. 67, 25–28 (2022).
Marcott, S. A., Shakun, J. D., Clark, P. U. & Mix, A. C. A reconstruction of regional and global temperature for the past 11,300 years. Science 339, 1198–1201 (2013). The first reconstruction of GMST based on a compilation of globally distributed terrestrial and marine proxy datasets shows evidence for a global HTM.
Shakun, J. D., Lea, D. W., Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. An 800-kyr record of global surface ocean δ18O and implications for ice volume-temperature coupling. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 426, 58–68 (2015).
Huang, S. P., Pollack, H. N. & Shen, P.-Y. A late Quaternary climate reconstruction based on borehole heat flux data, borehole temperature data, and the instrumental record. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L13703 (2008).
Mann, M. E., Schmidt, G. A., Miller, S. K. & LeGrande, A. N. Potential biases in inferring Holocene temperature trends from long-term borehole information. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L05708 (2009).
Rao, Z. et al. Pollen data as a temperature indicator in the late Holocene: a review of results on regional, continental and global scales. Front. Earth Sci. 10, 845650 (2022).
Zhang, W., Wu, H., Geng, J. & Cheng, J. Model-data divergence in global seasonal temperature response to astronomical insolation during the Holocene. Sci. Bull. 67, 25–28 (2022).
Marsicek, J., Shuman, B. N., Bartlein, P. J., Shafer, S. L. & Brewer, S. Reconciling divergent trends and millennial variations in Holocene temperatures. Nature 554, 92–96 (2018).
Deevey, E. S. & Flint, R. F. Postglacial hypsithermal interval. Science 125, 182–184 (1957).
Gulev, S. K. et al. Changing state of the climate system. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. et al.) 287–422 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).
Oerlemans, J. & Reichert, B. K. Relating glacier mass balance to meteorological data by using a seasonal sensitivity characteristic. J. Glaciol. 46, 1–6 (2000).
Leclercq, P. W. & Oerlemans, J. Global and hemispheric temperature reconstruction from glacier length fluctuations. Clim. Dyn. 38, 1065–1079 (2012).
Solomina, O. N. et al. Holocene glacier fluctuations. Quat. Sci. Rev. 111, 9–34 (2015).
Porter, S. C. Neoglaciation in the American Cordilleras. in Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science (ed. Elias, S. A.) 1133–1142 (Elsevier, 2007).
Porter, S. C. & Denton, G. H. Chronology of neoglaciation in the North American Cordillera. Am. J. Sci. 265, 177–210 (1967).
Briner, J. P. et al. Holocene climate change in Arctic Canada and Greenland. Quat. Sci. Rev. 147, 340–364 (2016).
Kingslake, J. et al. Extensive retreat and re-advance of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Holocene. Nature 558, 430–434 (2018).
Baggenstos, D. et al. Earth’s radiative imbalance from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 116, 14881–14886 (2019).
Rosenthal, Y., Kalansky, J., Morley, A. & Linsley, B. A paleo-perspective on ocean heat content: lessons from the Holocene and Common Era. Quat. Sci. Rev. 155, 1–12 (2017).
Bereiter, B., Shackleton, S., Baggenstos, D., Kawamura, K. & Seeringhaus, J. Mean global ocean temperatures during the last glacial transition. Nature 553, 39–44 (2018).
Matthews, J. A. & Briffa, K. R. The ‘Little Ice Age’: re‐evaluation of an evolving concept. Geogr. Ann. A Phys. Geogr. 87, 17–36 (2005).
McGregor, H. V. et al. Robust global ocean cooling trend for the pre-industrial Common Era. Nat. Geosci. 8, 671–677 (2015).
PAGES 2k Consortium. Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia. Nat. Geosci. 6, 339–346 (2013).
PAGES 2k Consortium. A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era. Sci. Data 4, 170088 (2017).
Solomina, O. N. et al. Glacier fluctuations during the past 2000 years. Quat. Sci. Rev. 149, 61–90 (2016).
Cuesta-Valero, F. J., Garcia-Garcia, A., Beltrami, H., González-Rouco, J. F. & Garcia-Bustamante, E. Long-term global ground heat flux and continental heat storage from geothermal data. Clim. Past 17, 451–468 (2021).
Laskar, J. et al. A long-term numerical solution for the insolation quantities of the Earth. Astron. Astrophys. 428, 261–285 (2004).
Lorenz, S. J. & Lohman, G. Acceleration technique for Milankovitch type forcing in a coupled atmosphere-ocean circulation model: method and application for the Holocene. Clim. Dyn. 23, 727–743 (2004).
Lindén, M., Möller, P. E. R., Björck, S. & Sandgren, P. E. R. Holocene shore displacement and deglaciation chronology in Norrbotten, Sweden. Boreas 35, 1–22 (2006).
Ullman, D. J. et al. Final Laurentide ice-sheet deglaciation and Holocene climate-sea level change. Quat. Sci. Rev. 152, 49–59 (2016).
Routson, C. et al. Mid-latitude net precipitation decrease with Arctic warming during the Holocene. Nature 568, 83–87 (2019).
Meyer, H. et al. Long-term winter warming trend in the Siberian Arctic during the mid- to late Holocene. Nat. Geosci. 8, 122–125 (2015).
Baker, J., Lachniet, M., Chervyatsova, O., Asmerom, Y. & Polyak, V. J. Holocene warming in western continental Eurasia driven by glacial retreat and greenhouse forcing. Nat. Geosci. 10, 430–435 (2017).
Holland, K. M., Porter, T. J., Froese, D. G., Kokelj, S. V. & Buchanan, C. A. Ice-wedge evidence of Holocene winter warming in the Canadian Arctic. Geophys. Res. Lett. 47, e2020GL087942 (2020).
Longo, W. M. et al. Insolation and greenhouse gases drove Holocene winter and spring warming in Arctic Alaska. Quat. Sci. Rev. 242, 106438 (2020).
Zhang, W. et al. Holocene seasonal temperature evolution and spatial variability over the Northern Hemisphere landmass. Nat. Commun. 13, 5334 (2022).
Mantsis, D. F., Clement, A. C., Broccoli, A. J. & Erb, M. P. Climate feedbacks in response to changes in obliquity. J. Clim. 24, 2830–2845 (2011).
Laepple, T. & Lohmann, G. Seasonal cycle as template for climate variability on astronomical timescales. Paleoceanography 24, PA4201 (2009).
Prentice, I. C. & Jolly, D. BIOME 6000 participants. Mid-Holocene and glacial-maximum vegetation geography of the northern continents and Africa. J. Biogeogr. 27, 507–519 (2000).
Cao, X., Tian, F., Dallmeyer, A. & Herzschuh, U. Northern Hemisphere biome changes (>30°N) since 40 cal ka BP and their driving factors inferred from model-data comparisons. Quat. Sci. Rev. 220, 291–309 (2019).
Dallmeyer, A. et al. Holocene vegetation transitions and their climatic drivers in MPI-ESM1.2. Clim. Past 17, 2481–2513 (2021).
O’ishi, R. & Abe-Ouchi, A. Polar amplification in the mid‐Holocene derived from dynamical vegetation change with a GCM. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L14702 (2011).
Diffenbaugh, N. S. & Sloan, L. C. Global climate sensitivity to land surface change: the Mid Holocene revisited. Geophys. Res. Lett. 29, 1476 (2002).
He, F. et al. Simulating global and local surface temperature changes due to Holocene anthropogenic land cover change. Geophys. Res. Lett. 41, 623–631 (2014).
Albani, S. et al. Twelve thousand years of dust: the Holocene global dust cycle constrained by natural archives. Clim. Past 11, 869–903 (2015).
Liu, Y. et al. A possible role of dust in resolving the Holocene temperature conundrum. Sci. Rep. 8, 4434 (2018).
Zhang, M., Liu, Y., Zhang, J. & Wen, Q. AMOC and climate responses to dust reduction and greening of the Sahara during the mid-Holocene. J. Clim. 34, 4893–4912 (2021).
Hopcroft, P. O. & Valdes, P. J. On the role of dust-climate feedbacks during the mid-Holocene. Geophys. Res. Lett. 46, 1612–1621 (2019).
Braconnot, P. et al. Impact of dust in PMIP-CMIP6 mid-Holocene simulations with the IPSL model. Clim. Past 17, 1091–1117 (2021).
Serreze, M. C. & Barry, R. G. Processes and impacts of Arctic amplification: a research synthesis. Glob. Planet. Change 77, 85–96 (2011).
Stranne, C., Jakobsson, M. & Björk, G. Arctic Ocean perennial sea ice breakdown during the early Holocene insolation maximum. Quat. Sci. Rev. 92, 123–132 (2014).
Funder, S. et al. A 10,000-year record of Arctic Ocean sea-ice variability—view from the beach. Science 333, 747–750 (2011).
de Vernal, A. et al. Natural variability of Arctic Ocean sea ice during the present interglacial. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 117, 26069–26075 (2020).
Wolff, E. W. et al. Southern Ocean sea-ice extent, productivity and iron flux over the past eight glacial cycles. Nature 440, 491–496 (2006).
Crosta, X. et al. Antarctic sea ice over the past 130 000 years – part 1: a review of what proxy records tell us. Clim. Past 18, 1729–1756 (2022).
Park, H.-S., Kim, S.-J., Stewart, A. L., Son, S.-W. & Seo, K.-H. Mid-Holocene Northern Hemisphere warming driven by Arctic amplification. Sci. Adv. 5, eaax8203 (2019). Model simulations show that, during the mid-Holocene (6 ka), mean annual temperature in the Northern Hemisphere increased in response to reduced Arctic sea-ice extent.
Chen, J., Zhang, Q., Kjellström, E., Lu, Z. & Chen, F. The contribution of vegetation-climate feedback and resultant sea ice loss to amplified Arctic warming during the mid-Holocene. Geophys. Res. Lett. 49, e2022GL098816 (2022).
Bader, J. et al. Global temperature modes shed light on the Holocene temperature conundrum. Nat. Commun. 11, 4726 (2020).
Tomas, R. A., Deser, C. & Sun, L. The role of ocean heat transport in the global climate response to projected Arctic sea ice loss. J. Clim. 29, 6841–6859 (2016).
Blackport, R. & Kushner, P. J. The role of extratropical ocean warming in the coupled climate response to Arctic sea ice loss. J. Clim. 31, 9193–9206 (2018).
Hudson, S. R. Estimating the global radiative impact of the sea ice–albedo feedback in the Arctic. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 116, D16102 (2011).
England, M. R., Polvani, L. M., Sun, L. & Deser, C. Tropical climate responses to projected Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice loss. Nat. Geosci. 13, 275–281 (2020).
Wunderling, N., Willeit, M., Donges, J. F. & Winkelmann, R. Global warming due to loss of large ice masses and Arctic summer sea ice. Nat. Commun. 11, 5177 (2020).
Tierney, J. E. et al. Past climates inform our future. Science 370, eaay3701 (2020).
Köhler, P., Nehrbass-Ahles, C., Schmitt, J., Stocker, T. F. & Fischer, H. A 156 kyr smoothed history of the atmospheric greenhouse gases CO2, CH4, and N2O and their radiative forcing. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 9, 363–387 (2017).
Brovkin, V. et al. What was the source of the atmospheric CO2 increase during the Holocene? Biogeosciences 16, 2543–2555 (2019).
Ruddiman, W. F. et al. Late Holocene climate: natural or anthropogenic? Rev. Geophys. 54, 93–118 (2016).
Tzedakis, P. C., Channell, J. E. T., Hodell, D. A., Kleiven, H. F. & Skinner, L. C. Determining the natural length of the current interglacial. Nat. Geosci. 5, 138–141 (2012).
Abram, N. J. et al. Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents. Nature 536, 411–418 (2016).
Shindell, D. T., Schmidt, G. A., Miller, R. L. & Mann, M. E. Volcanic and solar forcing of climate change during the preindustrial era. J. Clim. 16, 4094–4107 (2003).
PAGES 2k Consortium. Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and simulations over the Common Era. Nat. Geosci. 12, 643–649 (2019).
Wu, C.-J., Krivova, N. A., Solanki, S. K. & Usoskin, I. G. Solar total and spectral irradiance reconstruction over the last 9000 years. Astron. Astrophys. 620, A120 (2018).
Forster, P. et al. The Earth’s energy budget, climate feedbacks, and climate sensitivity. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. et al.) 923–1054 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).
Gray, L. J. et al. Solar influences on climate. Rev. Geophys. 48, RG4001 (2010).
Soon, W. A review of Holocene solar-linked climatic variation on centennial to millennial timescales: physical processes, interpretative frameworks and a new multiple cross-wavelet transform algorithm. Earth Sci. Rev. 134, 1–15 (2014).
Lu, W. et al. Temporal and spatial response of Holocene temperature to solar activity. Quat. Int. 613, 39–45 (2022).
Wanner, H. et al. Mid- to late Holocene climate change: an overview. Quat. Sci. Rev. 27, 1791–1828 (2008). A review of middle to late Holocene climate change, summarizing key climate forcings and evidence from both proxies and models.
Mayewski, P. A. et al. Holocene climate variability. Quat. Res. 62, 243–255 (2004).
Traversi, R. et al. Nitrate in polar ice: a new tracer of solar variability. Sol. Phys. 280, 237–254 (2012).
Sigl, M., Toohey, M., McConnell, J. R., Cole-Dai, J. & Severi, M. Volcanic stratospheric sulfur injections and aerosol optical depth during the Holocene (past 11,500 years) from a bipolar ice core array. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 14, 3167–3196 (2022).
Schneider, D. P., Ammann, C. M., Otto-Bliesner, B. L. & Kaufman, D. S. Climate response to large, high-latitude and low-latitude volcanic eruptions in the Community Climate System Model. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 114, D15101 (2009).
Miller, G. H. et al. Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, L02708 (2012).
Gupta, M. & Marshall, J. The climate response to multiple volcanic eruptions mediated by ocean heat uptake: damping processes and accumulation potential. J. Clim. 31, 8669–8687 (2018).
Lohmann, G., Pfeiffer, M., Laepple, T., Leduc, G. & Kim, J.-H. A model–data comparison of the Holocene global sea surface temperature evolution. Clim. Past 9, 1807–1839 (2013).
Zhang, Q. et al. Climate change between the mid and late Holocene in northern high latitudes – part 2: model-data comparisons. Clim. Past 6, 609–626 (2010).
Shakun, J. D. & Carlson, A. E. A global perspective on Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene climate change. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 1801–1816 (2010).
Zhang, X. & Chen, F. Non-trivial role of internal climate feedback on interglacial temperature evolution. Nature 600, E1–E3 (2021).
Laepple, T., Shakun, J., He, F. & Marcott, S. Concerns of assuming linearity in the reconstruction of thermal maxima. Nature 607, E12–E14 (2022).
Bova, S. et al. Reply to: Non-trivial role of internal climate feedback on interglacial temperature evolution. Nature 600, E4–E6 (2021).
Bova, S. et al. Reply to: Concerns of assuming linearity in the reconstruction of thermal maxima. Nature 607, E15–E18 (2022).
Annan, J. D., Hargreaves, J. C. & Mauritsen, T. A new global surface temperature reconstruction for the Last Glacial Maximum. Clim. Past 18, 1883–1896 (2022).
King, J. et al. A data assimilation approach to last millennium temperature field reconstruction using a limited high-sensitivity proxy network. J. Clim. 34, 7091–7111 (2021).
Johnson, J. S. et al. Review article: Existing and potential evidence for Holocene grounding line retreat and readvance in Antarctica. Cryosphere 16, 1543–1562 (2022).
Jones, R. S. et al. Stability of the Antarctic ice sheet during the pre-industrial Holocene. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 3, 500–515 (2022).
Kopp, R. E. et al. Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 113, E1434–E1441 (2016).
Lambeck, K., Rouby, H., Purcell, A., Sun, Y. & Sambridge, M. Sea level and global ice volumes from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 111, 15296–15303 (2014).
Milne, G. A. & Mitrovica, J. X. Searching for eustasy in deglacial sea-level histories. Quat. Sci. Rev. 27, 2292–2302 (2008).
Vacchi, M. et al. Multiproxy assessment of Holocene relative sea-level changes in the western Mediterranean: sea-level variability and improvements in the definition of the isostatic signal. Earth Sci. Rev. 155, 172–197 (2016).
Meco, J. et al. Mid and late Holocene sea level variations in the Canary Islands. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 507, 214–225 (2018).
Crawford, O. Quantifying the sensitivity of post-glacial sea level change to laterally varying viscosity. Geophys. J. Int. 214, 1324–1363 (2018).
Kwiecien, O. et al. What we talk about when we talk about seasonality – a transdisciplinary review. Earth Sci. Rev. 225, 103843 (2022).
Evans, M. N., Talwinski-Ward, S. E., Thompson, D. M. & Anchukaitis, K. J. Applications of proxy system modeling in high resolution paleoclimatology. Quat. Sci. Rev. 76, 16–28 (2013).
Dee, S. G., Steiger, N. J., Emile-Geay, J. & Hakim, G. J. On the utility of proxy system models for estimating climate states over the common era. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 8, 1164–1179 (2016).
Wörmer, L. et al. Ultra-high-resolution paleoenvironmental records via direct laser-based analysis of lipid biomarkers in sediment core samples. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 111, 15669–15674 (2014).
Williams, J. W., Kaufman, D. S., Newton, A. & von Gunten, L. Building open data: data stewards and community-curated data resources. PAGES Mag. 26, 50–51 (2018).
Mitchell, J. F. B. Greenhouse warming: is the mid-Holocene a good analogue? J. Clim. 3, 1177–1192 (1990).
Yoshimori, M. & Suzuki, M. The relevance of mid-Holocene Arctic warming to the future. Clim. Past 15, 1375–1394 (2019).
Peltier, W. R. Global glacial isostasy and the surface of the ice-age Earth: the ICE-5G (VM2) model and GRACE. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 32, 111–1149 (2004).
Rosenthal, Y., Linsley, B. K. & Oppo, D. W. Pacific Ocean heat content during the past 10,000 years. Science 342, 617–621 (2013).
Acknowledgements
We thank our colleagues for their helpful input, including D. Baggenstos, S. Bova, R. Bradley, C. Brierley, R. Creel, S. Dee, M. Erb, H. Fischer, O. Heiri, U. Herzschuh, P. Hopcroft, T. Laepple, D. Lunt, N. McKay, M. Osman and A. Thompson. This Review was motivated by the need for a comprehensive assessment of palaeo GMST for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
D.S.K. conceived the Review, assembled the datasets and wrote the first manuscript. E.B. expanded and improved the manuscript and crafted the figures.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature thanks Samantha Bova, Oliver Heiri, Peter Hopcroft and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Kaufman, D.S., Broadman, E. Revisiting the Holocene global temperature conundrum. Nature 614, 425–435 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05536-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05536-w