An experimental 392-year documentary-based multi-proxy (vine and grain) reconstruction of May-July temperatures for Kőszeg, West-Hungary

Abstract

In this paper, we present a 392-year-long preliminary temperature reconstruction for western Hungary. The reconstructed series is based on five vine- and grain-related historical phenological series from the town of Kőszeg. 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 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.