NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Koszeg, Hungary 392Yr Documentary May-July Temperature Reconstruction

The reconstructed series concerning the period of 1618-1873, based on five vine- and grain-related historical phenological series, is derived from documentary evidence, from the town of Koszeg in West-Hungary. We apply dendrochronological methods for both signal assessment of the phenological series and the resultant temperature reconstruction. As a proof of concept, the present reconstruction explains 57% of the temperature variance of May-July Budapest mean temperatures (calibration period: 1780-1873) and is well verified with coefficient of efficiency values in excess of 0.45. The developed temperature reconstruction portrays warm conditions during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries with a period of cooling until the coldest reconstructed period centred around 1815, which was followed by a period of warming until the 1860s. The phenological evidence analysed here represent an important data source from which non-biased estimates of past climate can be derived that may provide information at all possible time-scales. Comparison with other Central and West-European vine- and grain-phenology based temperature reconstructions proved strong coherence between the series.