Maximum growing season temperature in Western Europe: multi proxy reconstructions in Fontainebleau from 1596 to 2000

In this study, we have combined a Burgundy grape harvest date record with new d 18 O measurements conducted on timbers and living trees cellulose from Fontainebleau castle and forest. Our reconstruction is expected to provide a reference series for the variability of growing season temperature (from April to September) in Western Europe from 1596 to 2000. We have estimated an uncertainty of 0.55°C on individual growing season maximum temperature reconstructions. We are able to assess this uncertainty, which is not the case for many documentary sources (diaries etc.), and even not the case for early instrumental temperature data. We compare our data with a number of independent temperature estimates for Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. The comparison between our reconstruction and Manley mean growing season temperature data provides an independent control of the quality of CET data. We show that our reconstruction preserves more variance back in time, because it was not distorted/averaged by statistical/homogenisation methods. Further works will be conducted to compare the d 18 O data from wood cellulose provided by transects of different tree species in Europe obtained within the EC ISONET project and the French ANR Program ESCARSEL, to analyse the spatial and temporal coherency between d 18 O records. The decadal variability will be also compared with other precipitation d 18 O records such as those obtained from benthic ostracods from deep peri-Alpine lakes or simulated by regional atmospheric models equipped with the modelling of water stable isotopes.