Mid-Wisconsin seasonal temperatures reconstructed from fossil beetle assemblages in eastern North America: comparisons with other proxy records from the Northern Hemisphere

Mutual climatic range (MCR) analysis was applied to 15 North American beetle assemblages spanning the interval from > 52 000 to 17 200 yr BP, bracketing a Mid-Wisconsin interstadial interval. The analyses yielded estimates of mean July (TMAX) and mean January (TMIN) temperatures. The oldest assemblage (> 52 ka) yielded TMAX values 7.5–8°C lower than present and TMIN values 15–18°C lower than present. A Mid-Wisconsin interstadial warming dating from 43.5–39 ka was rapid and intense. At the peak of the warming event, about 42 ka, TMAX values were only 1–2°C lower than modern. This level of amelioration apparently lasted only about 2000–3000 yr. By 23.7 ka, TMAX values declined to 11.5–10°C lower than modern, but another, small-scale amelioration is indicated by assemblages dating from 20.5 to 19.7 ka. The interstadial event recorded from the site at Titusville, Pennsylvania closely matches the timing and intensity of the climate change estimated from British beetle faunas in the Upton Warren interstadial. Another warm interval (ca. 31–32.5 ka) has been documented from fossil beetle assemblages in Europe and North America. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Late Pleistocene and Holocene Seasonal Temperatures Reconstructed from Fossil Beetle Assemblages in the Rocky Mountains

Mutual Climatic Range (MCR) analysis was applied to 20 fossil beetle assemblages from 11 sites dating from 14,500 to 400 yr B.P. The fossil sites represent a transect of the Rocky Mountain region from northern Montana to central Colorado. The analyses yielded estimates of mean July and mean January temperatures. The oldest assemblage (14,500 yr B.P.) yielded mean July values of 10–11°C colder than present and mean January values 26–30°C colder than present. Postglacial summer warming was rapid, as indicated by an assemblage dating 13,200 yr B.P., with mean July values only 3–4°C cooler than modern. By 10,000 yr B.P., several assemblages indicate warmer-than-modern mean summer and winter values. By 9000 yr B.P., MCR reconstructions indicate that both summer and winter temperatures were already declining from an early Holocene peak. Mean July values remained above modern levels and mean January values remained below modern levels until 3000 yr B.P. A series of small-scale oscillations followed.     

Paleoenvironment reconstructions and climate simulations of the Early Triassic: Impact of the water and sediment supply on the preservation of fluvial systems

Paleoenvironmental reconstructions and climatic modelling allow us to investigate the influence of water and sediment supply on the preservation of fluvial systems within a given geodynamic context. To simulate climate, we need global-scale paleoenvironmental and paleotopographic reconstructions. However, the present study only covers the West-Tethys domain, where sedimentological and stratigraphic data allow us to check climate simulation results against geological data. We focus our modelling on the Olenekian, with the aim of characterizing the impact of climate on fluvial sedimentation in the West-Tethys domain. The climatic simulations show that paleoclimates differ between Western Europe and North Africa. A more humid climate is simulated over North Africa, whereas a rather arid climate prevails over Western Europe. In Western Europe, the sediments are preserved for the most part in endoreic basins and the presence of rivers in an arid environment suggests that these rivers are mainly fed by precipitation falling on the North Africa Variscan Mountains. In North Africa, sedimentation is exclusively preserved in exoreic basins (coastal plain sediments). Consequently, the lack of preserved fluvial systems in endoreic basins in North Africa either could be due to a shortage of accommodation space in this area, or is linked to the climatic conditions that controlled the water and sediment supply.     

Variations in climate since 1602 as reconstructed from tree rings

Spatial anomalies of tree-ring chronologies can provide information on high-frequency spatial anomalies in paleoclimate representing droughts, colder-than-normal intervals, and other synoptic-scale features. Examples are presented in which 65 tree-ring chronologies are calibrated with spatial anomalies in North American meteorological records of seasonal temperature and precipitation, and with sea-level pressure over the North American and North Pacific sectors. Multivariate transfer functions are obtained that scale and convert the past spatial variations in the tree-ring record into estimates of past variations in the meteorological record. Objective verifications of the reconstructions are obtained using independent meteorological observations for time periods other than those used in the calibration. Historical information or other proxy data from the 19th century are also used for verifying the decadal (or longer) and regional reconstructions and for identifying strengths and weaknesses of the various sources of information. The reconstructed winter and summer temperatures for the United States and southwestern Canada and winter precipitation for the Columbia Basin and California during the 17th through 19th centuries were found to differ from the 20th century means with large-scale variations evident. Extreme winters similar to 1976–1977 are also identified and found to be more frequent in the past, especially in the 17th century. The climatic reconstructions in this time domain are dominated by high-frequency, synoptic-scale fluctuations that can be interpreted as cyclonic-scale changes in atmospheric circulation. Such reconstructions may be useful for testing various climatic models and estimates developed primarily from 20th-century meteorological data against the longer estimated record for the 17th through 19th centuries.     

Simulation of the climate of 18,000 years BP: Results for the North American/North Atlantic/European sector and comparison with the geologic record of North America

The large ice sheets in North America and Europe and the extensive sea-ice cover in the North Atlantic at the time of the last glacial maximum must have greatly modified the surface temperature patterns and, in turn, the location and intensity of the surface winds and jet streams. A general circulation model was used to simulate the January and July patterns of temperature, precipitation, and wind for 18 ka BP. Boundary conditions for the model, consisting of ice-sheet location and height, sea-ice location, and sea-surface temperature were prescribed from CLIMAP (1981). The model results are illustrated and described for the North American/North Atlantic/European sector. The jet stream splits around the North American ice-sheet, and the southern branch strengthens considerably (compared to present) over the southern portion of the United States, the sea-ice margin of the North Atlantic, and the southern edge of the European ice-sheet. Geologic evidence, principally from North America, of wind, temperature and moisture conditions is assessed from sand dune and loess records, estimates of snowline depression, pollen records and lake-level studies. The geologic evidence is generally compatible with the model simulation.     

A multiproxy record of late Holocene natural and anthropogenic environmental change from the Sphagnum peat bog Dürres Maar,Germany: implications for quantitative climate reconstructions based on pollen

Pollen data are well established for quantitative climate reconstructions over long timescales, including the Holocene and older interglacials. However, anthropogenically induced environmental change in central Europe was strong during the last 4 ka, challenging quantitative reconstructions of this time period. Here we present quantitative climate reconstructions based on pollen analyses and evaluate them with the peat humification record and the stable carbon isotopes of Sphagnum plant material (δ¹³C_cellulose). All analyses were carried out on the same 7.5 m long, largely ombrotrophic peat bog section from Dürres Maar. Three different methods were used for the quantitative climate reconstructions on the basis of the pollen data: (1) a probabilistic indicator taxa approach (the ‘pdf method’); (2) a modern analogue technique based on pollen taxa from modern surface samples (cMAT); and (3) a modern analogue technique expanded by plant functional types (pMAT). At Dürres Maar the peat humification is only affected by peat cutting during the Roman period and the Middle Ages. The stable carbon isotopes are seemingly unaffected by human impact. Thus both proxies provide independent data to evaluate the reconstructions on the basis of pollen data. The quantitative climate reconstructions on the basis of the individual methods are in general relatively similar. Nevertheless, distinct differences between the individual approaches are also apparent, which could be attributed to taxa that reflect human impact on a local to regional scale. While the pdf method appears to be relatively robust to all observed anthropogenically induced vegetation changes, it potentially underestimates climate variability. This method is therefore expected to be independent of local site characteristics and to provide robust quantitative estimates of climatic trends rather than of climatic variability of small amplitude. This is of value for palaeoclimate reconstructions of older interglacials, for which neither multiple sites nor independent climate proxies are available for comparison. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

距今220 ka以来大同盆地沉积物磁化率反映的气候变化

大同盆地地处我国季风影响的北部边缘, 第四纪以来盆地内发育厚层的河湖相地层, 其上覆盖马兰黄土或全新世沉积, 蕴含着丰富的气候环境变迁信息, 是研究气候环境变化的理想场所. 在对盆地内地层考察的基础上, 对晚近地质时期河湖相与风成相互层沉积剖面的磁化率、粒度变化进行了分析. 结果表明: 220 ka BP以来大同盆地气候变化经历了中更新世(220~199 ka BP)暖湿期、中更新世(199~138 ka BP)干冷期、末次间冰期(138~71 ka BP)暖湿期、末次冰期(71~11 ka BP)干冷期、全新世(11 ka BP至今)频繁的干冷暖湿波动变化过程, 每个阶段仍有次一级的气候波动. 大同盆地这种气候变化与深海氧同位素以及我国北方萨拉乌苏河地区、岱海等地揭示的气候变化有很好的对应, 反映出本区气候变化是对全球冰期-间冰期气候波动的响应.     

Reconstruction of recent sea-level change using testate amoebae

Proxy-based sea-level reconstructions place the instrumentally observed rates of recent sea-level rise in a longer term context by providing data that extend the instrumental sea-level record into past centuries. This paper presents the first sea-level reconstructions based on analyses of testate amoebae, to test their ability to produce high-precision reconstructions of past sea level. We present two reconstructions for the past 100 yr from sites in Maine (USA) and Nova Scotia (Canada) based on short cores from salt marshes, and modern training data from North America and the United Kingdom. These are compared with tide-gauge records and reconstructions based on foraminifera from the same cores. The reconstructions show good agreement with both the tide-gauge data and the foraminifera-based reconstructions. The UK data perform well in predicting known elevations of North American surface samples and produce sea-level reconstructions very similar to those based on the North American data, suggesting the methodology is robust across large geographical areas. We conclude that testate amoebae have the potential to provide robust, higher precision sea-level reconstructions for the past few centuries if modern transfer functions are improved and core sites are located within the main zone of testate amoebae occurrence on the salt marsh.     

Last glacial ice‐rafted debris off southwestern Europe: the role of the British–Irish Ice Sheet

Ice‐rafted debris (IRD) seeded into the ocean from Northern Hemisphere ice sheets is found in ocean cores along the southwestern European margin through the last glacial period. It is known that the origin of this IRD, especially off Iberia, can vary between North America and western Europe during short‐lived episodes of greatly enhanced iceberg flux, known as Heinrich events, although in most Heinrich events the IRD has a North American source. During the longer times of much lower IRD fluxes between Heinrich events, use of an intermediate complexity climate model, coupled to an iceberg dynamic and thermodynamic model, shows that background levels of IRD most likely originate from western Europe, particularly the British–Irish Ice Sheet. Combining modelling with palaeoceanographic evidence supports reconstructions of a short‐lived, but substantial, Celtic and Irish Sea Ice Stream around 23 ka. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of North-American pollen-based temperature and global lake-status with CCCma AGCM2 output at 6 ka

We present new paleoclimate reconstructions for the time period of 6000 yr BP (6 ka) that permit a quantitative comparison to corresponding mapped patterns of the newest version of the Canadian CCCma AGCM2 climate model. July temperature reconstructions were estimated using the modern analog technique employing fossil pollen records from the North American Pollen Database. We present a new method of optimizing critical choices within the application of the MAT through modern calibration. The pattern of 6 ka temperature anomalies generated by the CCCma AGCM2 generally agree with those of the pollen-based reconstruction, particularly in the presence of a band of positive temperature anomalies across the continent from the Yukon through the Great Lakes region and along the St. Lawrence. This agreement suggests that both the model and data are reconstructing a contraction in the polar vortex over North America at 6 ka. Major areas of disagreement between the pollen-based reconstruction and model simulation are also areas where the data are sparse and edge effects produce less reliable reconstructions. The CCCma AGCM2 simulates drier conditions in a west–east band stretching from Alaska through the Canadian prairies and Midwest United States, in agreement with low lake-level observations at 6 ka. Simulated and reconstructed precipitation–evaporation are also in agreement over the southwest United States. With the exception of north central Africa, the CCCma AGCM2 fails to capture the northward and eastern extension of the Afro-Asian monsoon belt at 6 ka. General agreement between CCCma AGCM2 P-E anomalies and lake status change is found throughout Europe at 6 ka.     

柏科扁柏属(Chamaecyparis，Cupressaceae)的生物地理演化历史

现生扁柏属(Chamaecyparis)植物仅有5个种零星分布在北美东西部、日本和我国台湾地区,其现代分布区形成的原因一直是植物学家关注的问题。以往的研究利用现代分子生物学方法或化石记录对该属的分布区演化进行过一些探讨,但尚有争议。本文结合扁柏属最新的化石证据以及现代分子生物学的研究结果,对其生物地理演化历史进行了详细的分析。化石证据显示,地史时期该属种类较现在丰富,自早白垩世以来广泛地分布在北半球的中高纬度地区。根据化石记录推测扁柏属植物很可能在早白垩世起源于东亚地区,晚白垩世时已通过白令陆桥传播至北美西部并进一步传播至北美高纬度地区,北美东部目前尚缺少化石记录,该区域的扁柏植物可能是从欧洲或者北美高纬度地区迁徙而来。欧洲扁柏可能在渐新世由北美通过北大西洋陆桥传播而来,或从东亚地区传播而来。新近纪气候持续变冷以及受第四纪冰期的影响,使扁柏属在欧洲、亚洲中西部以及北美中部局部灭绝,东亚大陆的种不断向南迁移至日本岛和台湾岛,最后在亚洲大陆消失,最终形成了该属在北美东西部、日本和台湾局限分布的地理格局。     

Blueprints for Medieval hydroclimate

According to tree ring and other records, a series of severe droughts that lasted for decades afflicted western North America during the Medieval period resulting in a more arid climate than in subsequent centuries. A review of proxy evidence from around the world indicates that North American megadroughts were part of a global pattern of Medieval hydroclimate that was distinct from that of today. In particular, the Medieval hydroclimate was wet in northern South America, dry in mid-latitude South America, dry in eastern Africa but with strong Nile River floods and a strong Indian monsoon. This pattern is similar to that accompanying persistent North American droughts in the instrumental era. This pattern is compared to that associated with familiar climate phenomena. The best fit comes from a persistently La Niña-like tropical Pacific and the warm phase of the so-called Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. A positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) also helps to explain the Medieval hydroclimate pattern. Limited sea surface temperature reconstructions support the contention that the tropical Pacific was cold and the subtropical North Atlantic was warm, ideal conditions for North American drought. Tentative modeling results indicate that a multi-century La Niña-like state could have arisen as a coupled atmosphere–ocean response to high irradiance and weak volcanism during the Medieval period and that this could in turn have induced a persistently positive NAO state. A La Niña-like state could also induce a strengthening of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, and hence warming of the North Atlantic Ocean, by (i) the ocean response to the positive NAO and by shifting the southern mid-latitude westerlies poleward which (ii) will increase the salt flux from the Indian Ocean into the South Atlantic and (iii) drive stronger Southern Ocean upwelling.     

Reinterpreting climate proxy records from late Quaternary Chinese loess: A detailed OSL investigation

Numerous authors have utilised physical properties of Chinese loess and red clay deposits to develop apparently detailed and continuous past climate records from the Miocene into the Holocene. Many of these studies have further suggested that the principal climatic agent responsible for the aeolian emplacement and diagenesis of Chinese loess, the East Asian Monsoon, has fluctuated rapidly on millennial to sub-millennial timescales, in concert with dramatic changes in the North Atlantic (Dansgaard–Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events) and the Western Pacific (El Niño Southern Oscillation). Much of this evidence is based on reconstructions and age models that are tied to assumptions concerning the nature of loess sedimentation and diagenesis, for example, the belief that loess sedimentation can be viewed as essentially continuous. Some authors have however, cast doubt on these assumptions and suggest that the application of radiometric techniques may be required to determine their validity. Recent studies utilising Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) methods have reinforced these doubts and here, OSL dates obtained at 10 cm intervals from three sites along a transect across the Chinese Loess Plateau have been used, in combination with climate proxy evidence, to test the existing assumptions that underpin many palaeoclimatic reconstructions from loess. In this way, the first time-continuous and independently dated late Quaternary climate reconstruction is developed from loess. The data indicate that sedimentation is episodic and that once emplaced, loess is prone to pedogenic disturbance, diagenetic modification and in some cases erosion. The relationships between proxies and sedimentation rates are also assessed and climatic interpretations based on different age models compared. The implications of these findings for reconstructions of climate from loess are explored and comparisons are made between the developed palaeoclimate records and evidence from ice and ocean cores. This exercise also highlights important information concerning the relative influence of forcing mechanisms behind East Asian Monsoon change over the late Quaternary.     

An 810‐year history of cold season temperature variability for northern Poland

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a widely used tree species in European dendroclimatology studies due to its common distribution across much of the continent. Almost all studies find radial growth strongly related to summer temperature, a result reflecting site selection at high elevation/latitude environments where trees grow at their ecophysiological limits. Due to the amount of attention spent on these sites there is a geographical and seasonal bias in temperature reconstructions based upon tree‐ring proxies in Europe. To overcome the limited availability of tree‐ring data in temperate lowlands, we present a northern Poland ring‐width chronology developed from living and historic Scots pine material with a strong common growth signal going back to AD 1200. Investigations into climate‐growth relationships found year‐to‐year ring‐width variability to be more strongly correlated to cold season temperature (November to April) prior to the growing season than summer temperatures during tree‐ring formation. Based on this relationship it was possible to reconstruct cold season temperature conditions for the last 810 years. Spatial field correlations with gridded instrumental records indicated that the reconstruction provides relevant cold season temperature information across the land regions bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea, lowlands and uplands of western and central Europe, and the eastern and central interior of Russia. Despite an unsuccessful attempt to find a stationary relationship with the North Atlantic Oscillation, comparisons with several cold season temperature reconstructions confirmed the long‐term connection between our reconstructed temperature series for northern Poland and the wider area.     

The temperature of Europe during the Holocene reconstructed from pollen data

We present the first area-average time series reconstructions of warmest month, coldest month and mean annual surface air temperatures across Europe during the last 12,000 years. These series are based on quantitative pollen climate reconstructions from over 500 pollen sites assimilated using an innovative four-dimensional gridding procedure. This approach combines three-dimensional spatial gridding with a fourth dimension represented by time, allowing data from irregular time series to be ‘focussed’ onto a regular time step. We provide six regional reconstructed temperature time series as well as summary time series for the whole of Europe. The results suggest major spatial and seasonal differences in Holocene temperature trends within a remarkably balanced regional and annual energy budget. The traditional mid-Holocene thermal maximum is observed only over Northern Europe and principally during the summer. This warming was balanced by a mid-Holocene cooling over Southern Europe, whilst Central Europe occupied an intermediary position. Changes in annual mean temperatures for Europe as a whole suggest an almost linear increase in thermal budget up to 7800 BP, followed by stable conditions for the remainder of the Holocene. This early Holocene warming and later equilibrium has been mainly modulated by increasing winter temperatures in the west, which have continued to rise at a progressively decreasing rate up to the present day.     

Testate amoebae as proxies for mean annual water‐table depth in Sphagnum‐dominated peatlands of North America

Peatland‐inhabiting testate amoebae are sensitive indicators of substrate‐moisture conditions and have increasingly been used in palaeohydrological studies. However, to improve accuracy of testate‐amoeba‐based hydrological inferences, baseline ecological data on rare taxa, a larger geographic network of calibration sites, and incorporation of long‐term estimates of water‐table depth are needed. Species–environment relationships at 369 sites from 31 peatlands in eastern North America were investigated. Long‐term estimates of water‐table depth were obtained using the method of polyvinyl (PVC) tape‐discolouration. Transfer functions were developed using a variety of models, and validated through jackknifing techniques and with an independent dataset where water‐table depths were directly measured throughout the growing season. Results indicate that mean annual water‐table depth can be inferred from testate amoeba assemblages with a mean error of 6 to 8 cm, although there is a slight systematic bias. All transfer function models performed similarly and produced similar reconstructions on a fossil sequence. In a preliminary effort towards development of a comprehensive North American calibration dataset, data from this study were combined with previous studies in Michigan and the Rocky Mountains (n = 650). This combined dataset had slightly larger mean errors of prediction (8–9 cm) but includes data for several rare taxa. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantitative assessment of precipitation seasonality and summer surface wetness using ombrotrophic sediments from an Arctic Norwegian peatland

Seasonality of precipitation is an important yet elusive climate parameter in paleoclimatological reconstructions. This parameter can be inferred qualitatively from pollen and other paleoecological methods, but is difficult to assess quantitatively. Here, we have assessed seasonality of precipitation and summer surface wetness using compound specific hydrogen and carbon isotope ratios of vascular plant leaf waxes and Sphagnum biomarkers extracted from the sediments of an ombrotrophic peatland, Bøstad Bog, Nordland, Norway. Our reconstructed precipitation seasonality and surface wetness are consistent with regional vegetation reconstructions. During the early Holocene, 11.5–7.5 ka, Fennoscandia experienced a cool, moist climate. The middle Holocene, 7.5–5.5 ka, was warm and dry, transitioning towards cooler and wetter conditions from the mid-Holocene to the present. Changes in seasonality of precipitation during the Holocene show significant coherence with changes in sea surface temperature in the Norwegian Sea, with higher SST corresponding to greater percentage of winter precipitation. Both high SST in the Norwegian Sea and increased moisture delivery to northern Europe during winter are correlated with a strong gradient between the subpolar low and subtropical high over the North Atlantic (positive North Atlantic Oscillation).     

Late Holocene climatic variability reconstructed from incremental data from pines and pearl mussels – a multi‐proxy comparison of air and subsurface temperatures

Helama, S., Läänelaid, A., Tietäväinen, H., Macias Fauria, M., Kukkonen, I. T., Holopainen, J., Nielsen, J. K. & Valovirta, I. 2010: Late Holocene climatic variability reconstructed from incremental data from pines and pearl mussels – a multi‐proxy comparison of air and subsurface temperatures. Boreas, Vol. 39, pp. 734–748. 10.1111/j.1502‐3885.2010.00165.x. ISSN 0300‐9483. Dendrochronological and sclerochronological records are mean series of arboreal and molluscan increments that are correctly aligned in time by rigorous dating. These records of tree rings and annual shell‐growth increments exhibit climate signals that can be used to reconstruct fluctuations and trends in past climates. Here we present a multi‐proxy reconstruction of temperature histories using a combination of dendrochronological and sclerochronological evidence. Regional curve standardization (RCS) was used to remove the non‐climatic variations from dendrochronological and sclerochronological series prior to palaeoclimatic interpretation. Conventional and signal‐free methods of RCS were compared. It was found that the signal‐free methods produced more reliable chronologies and systematically higher climate–proxy correlations. Consequently, the temperature reconstructions were derived using the chronologies constructed by this method. Proxy‐based histories of summer (July–August) temperatures were reconstructed from AD 1767 onwards. The compound use of proxies resulted in reconstructions that were of higher quality than single‐proxy reconstructions. Further improvement of reconstructions was accomplished by the inclusion of lagging increment values in the transfer functions. The final multi‐proxy model explained 58% of the temperature variance over the instrumental period. The multi‐proxy temperature reconstruction correlated well with the long records of instrumental temperatures from Tornedalen, St. Petersburg, Uppsala and Stockholm. Overall, the reconstruction for the past 250 years agreed reasonably well with borehole temperature reconstructions obtained in northern Finland. In general, this study demonstrates the benefits of the compound use of several proxies in reconstructing climate histories. In particular, the study emphasizes the so far largely unexploited advantages of multi‐proxy data sets obtained by rigorously cross‐dated incremental chronologies to produce more robust palaeoclimatic reconstructions.     

Chironomid‐inferred late‐glacial summer air temperatures from Lough Nadourcan,Co. Donegal,Ireland

Western Ireland, located adjacent to the North Atlantic, and with a strongly oceanic climate, is potentially sensitive to rapid and extreme climate change. We present the first high‐resolution chironomid‐inferred mean July temperature reconstruction for Ireland, spanning the late‐glacial and early Holocene (LGIT, 15–10 ka BP). The reconstruction suggests an initial rapid warming followed by a short cool phase early in the interstadial. During the interstadial there are oscillations in the inferred temperatures which may relate to Greenland Interstadial events GI‐1a–e. The temperature decrease into the stadial occurs in two stages. This two‐stage drop can also be seen in other late‐glacial chironomid‐inferred temperature records from the British Isles. A stepped rise in temperatures into the Holocene, consistent with present‐day temperatures in Donegal, is inferred. The results show strong similarities with previously published LGIT chironomid‐inferred temperature reconstructions, and with the NGRIP oxygen‐isotope curve, which indicates that the oscillations observed in the NGRIP record are of hemispherical significance. The results also highlight the influence of the North Atlantic on the Irish climate throughout the LGIT. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ice‐free conditions in eastern Fennoscandia during early Marine Isotope Stage 3: lacustrine records

Helmens, K. F. & Engels, S. 2010: Ice‐free conditions in eastern Fennoscandia during early Marine Isotope Stage 3: lacustrine records. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502‐3885.2010.00142.x. ISSN 0300‐9483. The traditional notion that Fennoscandia was glaciated throughout Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 4–2, from c. 70 kyr BP to the deglaciation 15–10 kyr BP ago, has been challenged during the last decade. Recent studies have shown that climate and environmental settings during MIS 3 were more dynamic than previously assumed, and lacustrine sediment bodies indicate open‐water conditions for several sites in eastern Fennoscandia. In this study, three sediment sequences from western, eastern and northeast Finland are compared in detail with respect to their chronology, vegetation reconstruction and climatic inferences. OSL‐dating places the sediments in early MIS 3. Pollen evidence suggests the presence of isolated birch trees and open birch forest close to the retreating ice margin, in contrast to vegetation reconstructions from central Europe, which indicate tree‐less vegetation. Furthermore, reconstructions of climate using transfer functions have yielded surprising results, indicating present‐day summer temperatures in northeast Finland. The combined results suggest ice‐free and warm conditions in major parts of eastern Fennoscandia in early MIS 3, possibly during Greenland Interstadial (GIS) 14 around 53 kyr BP ago.