Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121 – 133

www.elsevier.com/locate/gloplacha

Climate change of the last 2000 years inferred from borehole

temperatures: data from Hungary
L. Bodri *, P. Dövényi
Research Group on Geophysics and Environmental Physics, Hungary Academy Science, c/o Geophysics Department, Eötvös University,
Pázmány sétány 1/c, Budapest 1117, Hungary
Received 15 May 2003; accepted 14 October 2003

Abstract

Ground surface temperature (GST) history, reflecting past climate conditions in Hungary, was evaluated by analysing the
excursions left on the present-day temperature – depth distribution measured by precise temperature logging in 20 boreholes.
These data were used to assess climatic changes over the last two millennia. We inverted the temperature – depth data using the
algorithm by Bodri and Cermak [Global Planet. Change 11 (1995) 111]. Four main episodes can be distinguished: a warm
period around 0 AD, extended cold conditions in the 6 – 16th centuries, a general warming culminated near 1850 and the
cooling since then. The verification of the GST assessment was accomplished by independent data from historical sources and
the GST reconstructions in surrounding Slovakia and Slovenia. The long cold conditions in the Middle Ages and the absence of
the Little Climatic Optimum seem to be generic feature of the climate in Hungary. In their more recent parts, the obtained GST
histories are consistent with the meteorological records in the area.
D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Borehole logging; Underground temperature; Climate reconstruction; Hungary

1. Introduction use of independent data to test and complete the past

The short-term (1– 1000 years) temperature changes
are generally investigated with the help of the mete-
orological surface air temperature (SAT) records and
documentary/archaeological sources. Because both
sources have their individual limits (e.g. shortness
of the existing SAT time series and the non-uniform
space –time distribution of the documentary evidence
of climatic change and their indirect character), the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +361-381-2191; fax: +361-381-
2192.
E-mail address: bodri@pangea.elte.hu (L. Bodri).
climate picture is indispensable. The ‘‘geothermal’’
data represent one of the additional sources of infor-
mation about the Earth’s changing surface tempera-
ture. Due to the low thermal diffusivity, crustal rocks
have a long thermal memory for temperature changes
on the Earth’s surface. The significance of the under-
ground temperatures for the climate reconstruction
was recognised almost as soon as the temperature –
depth measurements were performed in boreholes
(Lane, 1923). However, systematic attempts of the
ground surface temperature (GST) reconstructions
began only recently. In the last two decades, numer-
ous papers appeared reporting that temperature –depth
records in drillholes may contain a certain climatic

0921-8181/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2003.10.001
122 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133
signal, which can be extracted by inverse methods
(e.g. Cermak, 1971; Shen and Beck, 1992; Beck et
al., 1992; Shen et al., 1992; Bodri and Cermak, 1995,
1997; Huang and Pollack, 1997; Rajver et al., 1998).
As geothermal borehole measurements are generally
available from many regions on all continents, they
may represent a useful tool for climatic reconstruc-
tions in areas less covered by traditional climatic
investigations.
In the present study, GST history is assessed from
20 Hungarian boreholes. This area is poorly covered
by the traditional climatological data, thus, the geo-
thermal results could provide an important supple-
ment to the sparse evidence on the climate change in
Hungary. The study is completed by a comparison of
the obtained results with the GST reconstructions
from the neighbouring Slovakia and Slovenia, histor-
ical sources and the long-term meteorological mean
annual series.
2. Data
The first measurements of the outflowing water
temperature in Hungary were carried out by Zsig-
mondy V. between 1866 and 1877 in the notable
drillings Harkany, Margitsziget and Varosliget. The
first borehole temperature logging in Hungary was
performed by Papp K. in 1919 in the borehole
Varosliget (Budapest), and the first measurements
for heat flow density determinations began in the
1950s (Boldiszár, 1956). The present day catalogue
of the temperature data in Hungary contains over
4000 temperature logs collected by Dövényi et al.
(1983). Most of the borehole temperature –depth pro-
files were measured in the last decades of the 20th
century at various geological settings by several
institutions and logging centres with different techni-
ques, and thus varying significantly in quality. Major-
ity of these logs were measured for the hydrological
resources and/or oil prospecting and are not suitable
for climate reconstructions. Often the problem is that
after drilling is completed, the boreholes did not have
enough time to achieve stable thermal conditions. For
the classification of the existing temperature logs,
there were worked out a rather rigorous data ranking
criteria (for example, temperatures measured under
steady state conditions; temperatures measured during
drill stem tests both in water and petroleum explora-
tion wells; etc.) and applied to Hungarian data set
(Dövényi and Horváth, 1988; Horváth and Dövényi,
1991). Measurements under thermal equilibrium (the
time interval between drilling and temperature meas-
urements achieved 1– 2 years) were performed in only
61 of all the boreholes. However, a significant part of
these temperature – depth profiles contains only two to
four measured points. This amount is far not enough
for the recovering of the detailed GST history. Thus,
only 20 from a heap of available profiles are suitable
for climate reconstructions. The accuracy of the meas-
urements is estimated to be 10– 15% (Dövényi et al.,
1983; Horváth and Dövényi, 1991). Chosen boreholes
are regularly distributed throughout the country (Fig.
1). Thus, results of climatic reconstructions can pro-
vide also information about regional distribution of
climatic changes.
The selected boreholes were drilled in generally
sedimentary strata. All they are situated out of the
main areas of advective heat disturbance in Hungary.
In these areas, flow of water is driven by the hydraulic
head differences generally associated with topograph-
ic changes and/or with the Mesozoic carbonates in the
Pannonian basin. These rocks are characterized by
high secondary permeability occurring because of
intensive fracturing and karstification (Erdély, 1985).
In the selected borehole sites, a regional water flow
system is related to the expellation of formation water
from the pore spaces due to progressive burial and
compaction of rocks (Horváth and Dövényi, 1991).
Geothermal data and model calculations have shown
that this flow is normally very slow and perturbs
insignificantly the conductive temperature field (Steg-
ena, 1982; Alföldi et al., 1985). Other main non-
climatic causes of the nonlinearities in temperature –
depth profiles, such as topography, urban heat, sub-
surface heat production, are also negligible. As was
mentioned above, boreholes were drilled in generally
sedimentary, so-called, Upper Pannonian strata. This
formation covers the most part of the country and
represents the Pontian – Pliocene basin fill, which
consists of a delta-plain sequence with frequent alter-
nation of sands, sandstones, siltstones and clayey –
marly layers (Dövényi et al., 2002). Information on
the thermal conductivity exists for the 12 of 20 bore-
holes. The 20 to 50 core samples were available from
each borehole (Dövényi et al., 1983; Table 3). In
 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133 123

Fig. 1. The locations of the boreholes studied for climate change reconstruction in Hungary.

boreholes without thermal conductivity measure- least of the last 100 –200 years (Bodri and Cermak,
ments, the lithology of the penetrated depth intervals 1995). These boreholes were used for a simpler
was known in detail, because of existing continuous climatic reconstruction as applied for the first time
well-logs. An analysis of the thermal conductivity by Cermak (1971). Climate change is represented as a
data measured on different rock samples in the Pan-
nonian basin fill led to a good knowledge of the
general trend of thermal conductivity change with Table 1
depth for different lithologies (Dövényi and Horváth, Summary of the geothermal data for 10 Hungarian boreholes that
1988). This gives a possibility to make thermal were suitable for GST inversion
conductivity estimates for boreholes where the lithol- n Borehole Depth N Go (K/km) K
ogy of Neogene strata is known. Because thermal interval (m) (W/m K)
conductivity values exhibited only small variations 1 Artand-2 10 – 1010 11 37.5 F 5.5 2.0
about the mean, and most importantly showed no 2 Fuzesgyarmat-2 10 – 1260 14 62.8 F 1.2 2.7
systematic variation as a function of depth, thermal 3 Jaszbereny-1 10 – 1225 14 49.3 F 0.9 2.7
4 Kurd-3 50 – 450 10 76.5 F 1.4 2.0
conductivities were assigned their mean values 5 Mihaly-37 60 – 1570 24 51.6 F 0.8 2.7
(Tables 1 and 2). 6 Pusztafoldvar-6 10 – 1250 14 71.2 F 3.4 2.0
Reliable estimates of the GST history could be 7 Recsk-8 50 – 880 10 30.6 F 0.8 2.7
performed for 10 boreholes sampled with sufficient 8 Recsk-15 35 – 825 10 30.9 F 0.6 2.7
dense rate. Temperature logs and technical informa- 9 Szalatnak-4 50 – 700 11 50.8 F 1.7 3.0
10 Szirak-2 50 – 1585 25 38.2 F 0.8 2.8
tion of these boreholes are presented in Fig. 2 and
Column ‘‘Borehole’’ indicates the site and the number of borehole
Table 1. The rest 10 borehole temperature logs
according the catalogue by Dövényi et al. (1983). N is the number of
contained less than 10 measured points, and the measured points, Go is the temperature gradient and K is the thermal
measurements began below 100-m depth, thus, they conductivity. Column ‘‘Depth interval’’ represents the interval of
do not contain information about climatic events at depths where the temperature measurements were performed.
124 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133

Fig. 2. The Hungarian temperature – depth profiles used for the GST reconstructions. Symbols show the individual temperature measurements.
1 – 10: identification numbers in Table 1. Inset shows the upper parts of the temperature logs.

simple instantaneous temperature change of DT from least-squares inversion technique. Technical informa-
the previous To to T* temperature (DT = T*
To) at the tion of these 10 boreholes and estimated parameters of
time t*. In this case, temperature variation T takes the the climate change are presented in Table 2. Thermal
simple form: diffusivity was estimated from the measured conduc-
! tivity and assumed standard value of the volumetric
z specific heat of 2.5 MJ/m3 K.
T ðz; tÞ ¼ To þ Go z þ DTerfc pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ;
2 kðt
t*Þ

where z is depth, t is time, k is the thermal diffusivity, 3. Inversion technique

To and Go are the parameters of the steady-state
temperature field (see below). Negative DT means
cooling in comparison with the previous temperature,
and DT>0 implies warming. Unknown parameters of
climatic change DT and t* can be estimated by the
Temperature changes at the Earth’s surface diffuse
into the subsurface by heat conduction and manifest
themselves as a perturbations to the otherwise quasi-
steady state background temperature field. Depth and
 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133 125

Table 2
Summary of the geothermal data for 10 Hungarian boreholes used for an instantaneous temperature change climatic reconstruction
Borehole Depth N Go (K/km) K DT (K) t*
interval (m) (W/m K) (years BP)
Kovagotottos-2154 100 – 810 8 40.1 F 0.6 3.1
2.2 F 1.4 450 F 130
Kovagotottos-3175 100 – 890 8 33.7 F 0.9 3.1
2.5 F 1.1 670 F 190
Kovagotottos-4242 100 – 780 8 22.4 F 1.2 3.1
1.1 F 0.6 530 F 90
Kovagotottos-4294 120 – 920 9 39.5 F 1.3 3.1
1.0 F 0.5 550 F 110
Kovagotottos-4508 120 – 720 7 40.3 F 1.3 3.1
2.9 F 1.8 370 F 140
Kovagotottos-5065 100 – 800 8 40.5 F 1.5 3.1
3.0 F 1.7 500 F 130
Val-3 25 – 900 7 45.4 F 1.9 2.8
1.2 F 0.4 600 F 150
Nagylengyel-60 50 – 2025 8 48.9 F 1.8 1.85 1.6 F 0.4 2130 F 490
Nagylengyel-75 500 – 2150 9 46.0 F 1.5 1.85 2.1 F 1.9 2590 F 780
Nagylengyel-100 500 – 2300 7 49.7 F 2.7 1.85 1.2 F 1.0 2850 F 580
DT is the temperature change at the time t *. Other columns are the same as in Table 1.

time of the climatic change are linked nonlinearly by
thermal diffusivity. For the diffusivity of 10
6 m2/s,
temperature changes that occurred 100 years ago have
penetrated to only 80 m, whereas changes that oc-
curred 1000 years ago have penetrated to 250 –300 m.
Boreholes of several hundred meters depth may
therefore contain a response of the Earth to the surface
ground temperature changes over the last 1– 2 millen-
nia. Because of the low thermal diffusivity of crustal
rocks, the high frequency components are diffused out
with time, therefore, only signals of long wavelength
temperature variations at the Earth’s surface are pre-
served. GST history can be recovered from the sub-
surface temperature – depth profiles by inverse
techniques. The inverse method used in present study
is described by Bodri and Cermak (1995, 1997). This
method was tested on numerous synthetic and mea-
sured temperature logs. It is based on the theory of
heat conduction in a layered, laterally homogeneous
medium. The thermal properties of the medium are
regarded as known quantities; their uncertainties are
not taken into account, which may be rather severe
restriction in case of a complex stratigraphy and
inadequate thermal conductivity coverage (Shen et
al., 1992). In order to reconstruct past climate
changes, we used the generalised least-squares inver-
sion technique (Bodri and Cermak, 1995) which
minimises both the sum of the squares of deviations
of the measured record from the theoretical model and
the sum of the squares of the estimated parameters.
The surface temperature history is approximated by a
series of individual intervals of constant temperature.
The mean values of temperature in the individual time
intervals are unknown parameters. Discretization of
time depends on many site-specific factors, and
should be established for each borehole individually
by means of the resolution matrix (for details, see
Bodri and Cermak, 1995). When representing the
results graphically, we ascribe the obtained tempera-
ture values to the middle points of the corresponding
time intervals, and then draw a smoothed curve
through these points. Temporal resolution of the
borehole GST reconstructions decreases into the past.
It depends on the shape of the surface temperature
history, and is also a complex function of many
borehole specific parameters, such as accuracy and
vertical spacing of the temperature measurements,
distribution of thermal conductivity measurements,
etc. The experiments with synthetically generated
temperature logs randomly perturbed by noise with
Gaussian distribution can reveal the upper limits of
the resolution. According to Bodri and Cermak
(1995), the reliability of the determination of the
GST change is about 10 –15% for a change which
occurred 50 years ago. Changes which occurred 200
years ago can only be resolved by a 50-year interval
of the same reliability, and by a 200-year interval for a
change which occurred 800 years ago (see also
numerical experiments by Beck et al., 1992). Recon-
structed temperature variations become damped to-
wards the past due to progressively increasing
smoothing character of the inversion method. Warm-
ing or cooling signals can be amplified or attenuated
through the choice of the singular cut-off value which
restricts the resolution but improves the stability of the
solution. The optimal choice of the cut-off value does
126 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133
a deal between the variance of the estimated GST and
the resolution. It should be mentioned, however, that
the warming trend cannot be transformed into a cool-
ing trend or vice versa through the choice of the cut-
off value. Strategy for optimal choice of the cut-off
values is described by Bodri and Cermak (1995).
Numerous trial runs with synthetic examples have
shown that the reconstructed GSTs agree almost
perfectly with the past conditions in the recent 200 –
300 years, while the amplitude of climatic changes
that occurred 800– 1000 years before present may be
smoothed down to approx. 50% of its initial value.
The bulk of the observed temperatures represents a
quasi-steady state geothermal field. For a homoge-
neous, isotropic rock strata having no internal heat
sources, the steady-state temperature TS increases
linearly with depth as TS = To + Goz, where z is depth,
To and Go are the quasi-steady-state ground surface
temperature and temperature gradient, respectively. To
investigate temperature perturbations in the measured
profiles that might have been caused by climate
change, we used the reduced temperature TR, defined
Fig. 3. Reconstructed GST histories for 10 boreholes presented in Table 1. Thick line represents mean value of eight boreholes except of the
Recsk-8 and Recsk-15.
as TR(z) = TM(z)
TS(z), which represents transient
departure from the steady-state conditions, and TM is
the measured temperature. The parameters of the
steady-state temperature field, presented in Tables 1
and 2, were calculated from the lowermost parts of the
measured temperature logs by the standard linear
regression technique. The transient component is
assumed to be caused by time variations of the ground
surface temperature.
4. GST reconstruction in Hungary
Ten temperature logs presented in Table 1 were
inverted individually; the obtained GST histories are
shown in Fig. 3. Because of significant depth of the
measured temperature logs, the GST histories could
be reconstructed for the last two millennia. However,
the relatively coarse sampling (depth step was as a
rule 50 – 100 m, in comparison with the usual, in
geothermal logging, 5– 10 m or even finer sampling
interval) permitted us to resolve only two to three
 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133
main climatic episodes that had the greatest impact on
the temperature log in a given environment. It should
be mentioned, however, that the course sampling has
impact generally on the recent segments of the GST
history. As was shown by Bodri and Cermak (1997),
for 1– 2-km-deep boreholes with finer sampling of 5–
10 m generally four to six climatic events could be
resolved within the last 2000 years time interval.
However, two to three of the resolved events were
concentrated in the interval between approx. 1800 AD
and the present.
The range of the GST changes obtained for differ-
ent boreholes is very similar. Temperature oscillations
may vary within the range of 1.8 – 3.1 K with the
mean value of 2.22 F 1.14 K. The coincidence of the
shape of the obtained GST histories is rather good
except of the two closely spaced boreholes at Recsk
site, which implies that all borehole sites were sub-
jected to the same, or very similar, climate changes
and that noise is probably introduced by the temper-
ature measurements and the errors caused by the
insufficient representation of the conductivity. Be-
cause the temperature logging was performed more
than 20 years ago, it is now impossible to examine the
conditions existing in the close vicinity of the Recsk
boreholes. However, since both holes at Recsk gave
very coherent GST histories, their inconsistency with
Fig. 4. Temperature logs for boreholes Gondovo (PKS-1) and Zlatno (R-9) and the corresponding reconstructed GST histories compared with
the GST reconstructions from the boreholes at Recsk.
127
other GST curves is not simply an artefact of inversion
and probably reflects definite local conditions. The
differences between GST histories from the boreholes
Recsk and closely spaced borehole Szirak could be
explained by the influence of the mountain climate.
The two boreholes Recsk are situated within the
Carpathian Mts. at the northern border of the Matra
mountain range, belonging to Carpathian system. The
site of borehole Szirak belongs to the southern low-
land of other mountain range of Carpathians, the
Cserhat Mts. This conclusion can be confirmed by
the comparison of the climatic trends reconstructed
from the Recsk temperature –depth profiles with the
GST reconstructions for the neighbouring boreholes.
Fig. 4 shows the GST histories calculated for two
Slovakian boreholes Gondovo (48.28jN, 18.66jE)
and Zlatno (48.41jN, 18.78jE) located at some
100 – 120-km distance NW of Recsk at sites also
belonging to the different ranges of the Carpathian
system (Bodri and Cermak, 1999). These GST histo-
ries appear to be generally coherent with the GST
trends obtained for the Recsk boreholes; the range of
temperature excursions is near 3 K. The main epi-
sodes are a cooling between 1800 and 1900 AD and
general warming since then.
The general course of the climatic excursions in
Hungary can be traced on the curve representing the
128 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133
arithmetic mean of the eight GST histories (Fig. 3).
The results revealed warmer conditions before 500
AD, followed by a long period of cooling from the 9th
to the 16th centuries and culminated between 1300 –
1500 AD, pronounced warming with the maximum in
the second half of the 19th century and cooling since
then. The range of climatic excursions achieved F 2
K. The warming period approx. 2000 years ago is also
confirmed by the values of DT estimated in three
boreholes at Nagylengyel (Table 2). Significant depth
of the measured temperature logs at Nagylengyel site,
that exceeded 2 km, permitted to recognise these
remote warming events. All boreholes revealed rather
synchronic warming occurred 2000– 3000 years BP,
the end of which is visible also at the GST histories in
Fig. 3. This warm period can be associated with the
so-called secondary Optimum, which is defined in
comparison with the Atlantic period (6000 – 3000
BC), representing the warmest postglacial times.
According to Lamb (1977), there was a gradual
recovery of warmth in Europe over approx. 1000
years after 600 BC, particularly after 100 BC, leading
to a period of warmth. Subsequent cooling is also
confirmed by the results of the estimations of the step
change in climate for boreholes Kovagotottos and Val
(Table 2), which showed 1 – 3 K cooling 400 –700
years BP, thus, in the years 1300 –1600 AD.
5. Discussion and conclusions
The instrumental temperature records are typically
available for no more than the past 150 years. There-
fore, reconstruction of pre-industrial climate relies
principally on traditional climate proxy records and
borehole temperature inversion. Generally, four main
climatic episodes for the period since the Early
Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century could
be recognised in Europe. The warmer times culminat-
ing near 300 – 400 AD are documented, e.g. by
dendroclimatological records (maximum density of
late wood in the tree rings, radiocarbon dates of fossil
trees found above the present tree line) from Switzer-
land (Röthlisberger, 1976; Renner, 1982). The cold
period with its climax between the 8th and 10th
centuries is documented by the general paleoclimatic
trend in Europe reconstructed by Williams and Wigley
(1983) by using a variety of proxy sources. This
period was also revealed in the most reliable global
temperature reconstruction by Huang and Pollack
(1997), who examined a large archive of continental
heat flow measurements for evidence of late Quater-
nary temperature variations. Data characterize both
periods as quite durable (e.g. fossil trees are found
above the present tree line from the times 100 to 500
AD). The following warm period, sometimes called
‘‘Little Climatic Optimum’’, is reported by Lamb
(1977), Flohn and Fantechi (1984), as well as in the
reconstructions by Huang and Pollack (1997), with
climax occurring between years 1150 and 1300 AD.
An analysis by Crowley (2000) indicated, however,
that this Optimum was less distinct and more moder-
ate in amplitude as compared to the mid-20th-century
warm period. The Medieval temperature peaks were
not synchronous in different records. The late 16th
and 17th centuries extreme condition called ‘‘Little
Ice Age’’ is the period of cold climate. According to
Lamb (1977) and Flohn and Fantechi (1984), the
maximum development of the Little Ice Age also
agrees with the historical maximum advance of the
Alpine glaciers (1600 – 1660 AD) or with the maxi-
mum tree-ring density in Switzerland and Austria
(1575 –1650 AD; Williams and Wigley, 1983). How-
ever, according to studies by Bradley (1994), there
exist significant differences in details of principal
events appearing in the reconstructions of temperature
histories indicating spatial/temporal inhomogeneities.
The first of the foregoing periods is clearly visible
in our GST reconstructions, and is supported also by
the climate change parameters estimated for the
Nagylengyel site. However, the further course of
climatic history in Hungary seems to represent a
single durable cold period which has continued from
6 –7th to 15 –16th centuries. This paleoclimatic trend
is confirmed by the results of the GST reconstructions
by (Rajver et al. (1998, fig. 7a) for the almost 2000-m-
deep temperature profile of the borehole Ljutomer (Lj-
1), Slovenia, situated close to the SW Hungarian
border (46.51jN, 16.19jE). Inversion was performed
with the functional space inversion method by Shen
and Beck (1992). Significant depth of borehole per-
mitted to reconstruct GST course for the time far
before 1000 AD. Results (Fig. 7a, curve depicted with
a priori s.d. 0.1– 1.0 W/m.K, 0.02 –0.2 K) have shown
that the change from the previous warm to the cold
conditions occurred at the Ljutomer site after approx.
 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133 129

500 AD, and the cold conditions prevailed up to 14– disasters, such as famine, epidemics, etc., that in
15th centuries with the general return to warm con- principle also can contain information about climatic
ditions after that time. The cold conditions dispersed conditions were not taken into account, because of
over approx. 1000 years seem to be a generic feature their rather subjective character and the difficulties
of the climate in the area under investigation. arising in the way to extract exact climatic information
While there is no doubt that the Little Ice Age and from such notes. Data on harvests were taken into
the subsequent warming were probably global in account only if it was mentioned together with the
extent, the scope of the warming in Medieval times climatic conditions (e.g. the year 1275—‘‘Summer
still represents the question under debate (Mann and was so cold that neither cereals nor fruit and grape
Bradley, 1999; Bradley et al., 2001; Broecker, 2001). did not grow ripe’’). Specific feature of Hungarian
Time series of paleotemperatures reconstructed by data is that in the most of the documents climatic
Mann and Bradley (1999) with the use of various events were noted in conjunction with the military
proxy indices have shown that even conditions of the campaigns, like e.g. famous chronicle by Istvánfi
11– 12th centuries were warmer in comparison with Miklós (Hungarian statesman and historian, 1535 –
the subsequent cooling, they were far not so warm as 1615) and in the diary by Suleiman the Magnificent
the post-industrial warming. On the Northern Hemi- (Ottoman Sultan, 1520 – 1566), e.g. the winter of
sphere scale, these authors interpret the period around 1528/29—‘‘. . .Suleiman Turkish Emperor came near
800 –1200 AD as the part of the long-term cooling to occupy Vienna and only extremely cold winter
trend prior to the industrialisation. According to these drove his army away’’. The numbers in the rows
authors, the Medieval warmth appears to be mainly ‘‘cold’’ and ‘‘warm’’ in Table 3 can help to estimate
restricted to areas neighbouring and in the North the proportion of cold against warm periods in given
Atlantic, which may hint the impact of the century- century, and thus, hint to its preference climatic state,
scale changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation activity while the row ‘‘total’’ illustrates the part of the cold
on the climate variability. and warm notes in the total volume of the existing
The existing long-term paleoclimate reconstruc- sources.
tions in the area under investigation, that could help As seen in Table 3, only a few data exists from
to verify our GST reconstruction, are almost entirely each century between 0 and 1000 AD (e.g. only three
based on the written historical sources. In comparison notes from the 10th century). The number of climatic
with the western European countries, where written notes in the documents began to increase only from
documents describing climate, meteorological events
and/or natural disasters can be found everywhere (e.g. Table 3
in Italy vast amount of data exists back over the last Summary of historical notes of climatic character in Hungary (the
2500 years; Pfister et al., 1999), the Hungarian data- explanations of the terms ‘‘Total’’, ‘‘Cold’’ and ‘‘Warm’’ are given
base is more modest. All available historical sources in the text)
are included in the compilation by Réthly (1962, Century Total Cold Warm
1970). Hungarian data are also stored in the EURO- II 4 2 1
CLIMHIST database (Pfister et al., 1999). Table 3 III – – –
summarises the number of existing references on IV 3 – –
V 3 2 –
climatic conditions in Hungary. In the row ‘‘total’’ VI 1 1 –
of this table, we took into account only those notes VII 2 1 –
that directly refer to climate conditions (e.g. cold, VIII 1 – 1
warm, raining, droughts, etc.). Only those notes were IX – – –
calculated in the rows ‘‘cold’’ and ‘‘warm’’ that are X 3 1 –
XI 24 13 3
directly connected with temperatures and embrace XII 14 4 4
relatively long periods (e.g. the years 1043/44-‘‘The XIII 44 16 12
winter was so severe in Hungary, that the cattle had XIV 26 8 6
frozen to death in the cowsheds’’; the years 1275/76— XV 160 45 51
‘‘Very severe, long and snowy winter’’). The natural XVI 258 53 68
130 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133
the beginning of the last millennium (e.g. already 24
notes in the 11th century). However, significant
amount of data exists only since approx. the 15th
century. Since 1540 – 1550 AD, a few notes can be
found for each year. The notes on the temperature
conditions generally form 50 – 70% of all climatic
documentary sources, and significant part of them
refers to exceptionally extreme conditions, like cited
above. This hints to the recurrent occurrence of
extreme conditions before the 16th century in com-
parison with the unimportant periods that did not
deserve to be mentioned in the documents. The
‘‘cold’’ notes prevail above the ‘‘warm’’ entries up
to the 14th century, and even in the 15– 16th centu-
ries, their amount was not significantly behind the
‘‘warm’’ notes. Provisional returns of cold conditions
had strong economic and social impact in Hungary in
16th century. Landsteiner (1999) describes the wine
production crisis in Lower Austria and Western Hun-
gary in the late 16th century caused by the often
occurrence of cold winters and frosts late in spring.
Data in Table 3 generally confirm the long duration of
the cold climate in Hungary and return to warm
conditions in the 15– 16th centuries, revealed by our
GST reconstructions.
Detailed reconstruction of the temperature trends in
Hungary from the 16th century to the present was
performed by Racz (1999), who combined historical
climate information from the various documentary
sources. These data have been calibrated and verified
with the existing SAT instrumental records. Resulting
climatic temperatures on the yearly scale of averaging
show moderately cool conditions from the early 16th
century to the late 18th century. The weather in the
first half of the 19th century turned somewhat milder.
While the mean temperature in the 16 –18th centuries
slightly oscillated around the mean of 10.5 jC, the
prevailing temperatures for the 19th century were
close to 11– 11.5 jC. General warming began in the
early 20th century.
The course of the last 500-year climatic history in
Hungary is to the some degree confirmed also by the
GST reconstructions by Rajver et al. (1998) for a suite
of boreholes from the north-eastern part of Slovenia
(45.5 – 46.7jN, 14.6 –16.2jE). As for the Lj-1, bore-
hole inversion was performed by the functional space
inversion method and embraced period from 1500 AD
to the present. Results by Rajver et al. (1998) revealed
cold conditions prevailing before 1700 –1800 AD and
subsequent warming with the maxima occurred for
different boreholes between the years 1850 and 1975.
The GST histories from five of the nine investigated
boreholes have shown also recent cooling occurred in
the last decades of the 20th century. However, these
GST inversions should be used with the some caution,
because signal in the T – z data of some of the
mentioned boreholes could contain a possible noise
and/or be corrupted as a result of larger contrast in
thermal conductivity, which probably was not com-
pletely compensated in the inversion.
The times since the beginning of the 16th century
represent the rapid recovery from the previous cold
conditions to the warmer climate (Fig. 3). This warm-
ing culminated near 1850 AD in our GST histories
and then has changed by the subsequent cooling.
However, this cold period was shorter and not as cold
as the previous Little Ice Age. The warm episode
around 1850 AD and the subsequent cooling are also
visible at the meteorological surface air temperature
(SAT) record from Budapest (data exist since the year
1780; Fig. 5), and at the SAT anomalies record
averaged over the grid box 45 –50jN, 15– 20jE (data
by Jones et al., 1999; see also www.cru.uea.ac.uk;
Fig. 6). This record begins at the year 1856 and
represents (constructed at the Climatic Research Unit,
Univ.of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) temperature
anomalies calculated as the deviations from 1961 to
1990 base period at the 5  5j grid box basis. Both
records contain warming episodes around 1800– 1850
and the cooling culminated near 1900 AD When
examining SAT records, Hansen and Lebedeff
(1987) recognised the period between 1940 and
1970 as a cooling by 0.3 – 0.5 K for whole Central
Europe. According to Ghil and Vautard (1991), the
whole Northern Hemisphere was experienced a tem-
perature decrease between 1950 and the mid-1970s.
Thus, the variations observed in the reconstructed
GST histories since 19th century to the present are
in good agreement with the meteorological records.
The absence of the more recent details than those
dated back to the 1950– 1970 in the inverted GSTs
can be explained by the fact that the most of the
temperature logs begin below 40– 60-m depth. The
underground response to a 5 – 10-year-long climate
cycle of about 1 K could not penetrate deeper than
50 –70 m (Bodri and Cermak, 1995).
 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133 131

Fig. 5. Annual mean temperatures at the Budapest (KMI) station and their 10-year running mean (data from the Year Books of the Central
Institute of Meteorology, Part 3, Meteorological Service of Hungary, Budapest).

Fig. 6. Meteorological monthly temperature anomalies averaged over the grid box 45 – 50jN, 15 – 20jE. Thick line represents their 10-year
running mean.
132 L. Bodri, P. Dövényi / Global and Planetary Change 41 (2004) 121–133
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Climatic Research Unit,
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, for the
gridded temperature data provided from their web site
at www.cru.uea.ac.uk. All helpful and valuable
manuscript comments of Drs. V. Cermak, D. Rajver,
M. Verdoya and an anonymous reviewer are greatly
acknowledged.
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