Description
Sediment cores collected from Donard Lake, Baffin Island, Canada (66.25°N, 62°W) were analyzed to produce a 1240-year record of average summer temperature for this region based on clastic varve thickness, which was demonstrated to reflect changes in the region's mean summer air temperature as measured at nearby Cape Dyer. And in the words of the researchers who did the work, "the most prominent feature of the record is a period of elevated summer temperatures from AD 1200-1375," the peak 10-year mean value of which was approximately 0.9°C warmer than the peak 10-year mean value in the vicinity of 1960 (the highest of the last hundred years), 1.2°C warmer than the peak 10-year mean value in the vicinity of 1980, and fully 2.0°C warmer than the last 10-year value of the record, which was centered on approximately 1987.