The Tallinn Temperature Series Reconstructed Back Half a Millennium by Use of Proxy Data

Abstract

In order to extend the Tallinn temperature series backward in time, three different climate proxies were used. These were: the first day of ice break-up in Tallinn port, a proxy for the mean winter air temperature (December to March); the first day of ice break-up on the rivers in northern Estonia, a proxy for the beginning of spring; and, the first day of the rye harvest, a proxy for the mean air temperature in spring and summer (April to July). On the basis of these proxies the mean winter temperature could be extended back to the year AD 1500, and the spring and summer temperature back to 1731. The series of winter temperatures was analysed for long-term trends and variations on different timescales. The most striking feature is the warming of the winters from about the mid nineteenth century to the present. The warming is especially noticeable over the latest decades. The climate from the start of the series (AD 1500) to the mid nineteenth century was in general somewhat colder, and should be recognised as a part of the Little Ice Age, though the period was intercepted by warmer winters in the first half of the eighteenth century.