Quantitative reconstruction of Holocene climate from the Chuna Lake pollen record, Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia

• Published in: The Holocene
• Main Authors: Solovieva, Nadia, Tarasov, Pavel E., MacDonald, Glen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2005
• Subjects: Fennoscandia; karelia*; kola peninsula; Northwest Russia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0959683605hl793rr; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1191/0959683605hl793rr

July mean temperatures and annual precipitation during the last 9000 years were inferred using the pollen record from Chuna Lake, Kola Peninsula, Russia. A quantitative pollen-climate model was generated using the best modem analogues method from a training set of 99 surface pollen spectra from the Kola Peninsula, northern Fennoscandia and Karelia. According to the evidence from Chuna Lake, the early and mid-Holocene (c. 9000-5000 cal. BP) was warm and dry in the central Kola Peninsula with July temperatures being 1.5-2C higher than at present. The onset of warm and dry early to mid-Holocene occurred in the Kola Peninsula earlier than in the rest of northern Fennoscandia. July temperature started to decrease and annual precipitation increased from c. 5000 cal. yr BP and climate became cool and moist.