date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:24:54 +0100 from: "Quaternary Science Reviews" subject: Reviewer Invitation for JQSR-D-07-00060 to: Ms. Ref. No.: JQSR-D-07-00060 Title: Imprints of Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and twentieth century warmth in proxy-based temperature reconstruction at high-latitudes of Europe Quaternary Science Reviews Dear Keith, Earlier this year, you and Tom Melvin kindly provided a review of this paper. On the basis of your recommendation, and in particular the comment that the RCS method used was flawed, it was returned to the authors as a rejection. However, they have now re-submitted a modified manuscript with responses to reviewers. In these they point out that they did not in fact use the RCS method as you indicated. If correct, this would seem to remove your major criticism of their work. On that basis, could I please request a few minutes of your time to look again at this paper to see if it is now acceptable for publication? PLEASE DO NOT USE YOUR E-MAIL "REPLY" OPTION TO RESPOND TO THIS INVITATION. Instead, please respond online at http://ees.elsevier.com/jqsr/. You will need to login as a Reviewer: Your username is: KBriffa-255 Your password is: briffa5873 Please select the "New Invitations" link on your Main Menu, then choose to "Accept" or "Decline" this invitation, as appropriate. If you accept this invitation, I would be very grateful if you would return your review by May 15, 2007. Once you have done this, I will send you the author's replies to reviewers by separate email. You may submit your comments online at the above URL. There you will find spaces for confidential comments to the editor, comments for the author and a report form to be completed. If I do not hear back from you, I will assume that you do not have a fundamental opposition to publication of this work. With many thanks in anticipation and kind regards, Neil Neil Roberts Editor Quaternary Science Reviews ABSTRACT: New tree-ring based analysis for climate variability at regional scale is presented for northern Fennoscandia. Our absolutely dated temperature reconstruction seeks to characterize the shifts and gradual changes in temperature history through the classical climatic periods since AD 750. Warmest and coldest reconstructed 250-year periods occurred AD 931-1180 and AD 1601-1850, respectively. These periods owe significant temporal overlap with the general hemispheric climate variability due to the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Detailed picture of temperature evolution shows that MWP was long ameliorated interval with mean temperatures warmer than temperatures during the following centuries but not warmer than during the 20th century. The LIA seems to follow the two-stage model. We detect the approx. 60-year rhythm, attributable to North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC), in the regional climate during the MWP but not during the LIA. THC further appears as an agent behind the initiation and continuation of MWP and the mid-LIA transient warmth. Coldest and warmest of all reconstructed 100-year periods occurred AD 1587-1686 and AD 1895-1994, respectively. These dates bracket the coldest phase of Little Ice Age suggesting that both its initiation and termination were associated with anomalous climatic intervals. Cooling of climate since the MWP until the termination of the LIA follows the hemispheric trend supposedly by orbital forcing, amplification of volcanic signature years and hemispheric vegetation changes with intensifying mechanism from regional forest-limit retreat. Brief comparison of instrumental and proxy-based records shows that the rise in annual and summer temperatures during the late 19th and early 20th century is parallel but not exactly simultaneous. ****************************************** For any technical queries about using EES, please contact Elsevier Reviewer Support at reviewersupport@elsevier.com