| Summary: | Understanding the fundamentals of the Earth’s climate system during the Quaternary Period (the past ca 2.6 million years) is of imminent interest in light of the reported recent climatic changes. The Eemian Interglacial (ca 129,000-116,000 years ago) is the last period before the present interglacial (the Holocene, the last ca 11,700 years) when temperatures were as warm as or warmer than today and may serve as an analogue to future climatic warming. The Eemian is a relatively well-studied period, but many aspects of the interglacial climatic dynamics still remain unresolved. One reason for this is the chronological uncertainties of many records from this time period; another is the relatively uneven distribution of palaeoarchives. Especially from high latitude areas, terrestrial records from the Eemian are few due to the impact of glacial erosion during the Weichselian Glacial (ca 116,000-11,700 years ago). This thesis is based on data from Sokli, N Finland, where cold-based conditions of the Weichselian ice sheets and non-typical bedrock conditions have allowed preservation of an unusually thick Eemian lacustrine deposit in stratigraphic sequence with overlying Weichselian and Holocene deposits. The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge of climate variability in Fennoscandia and the North Atlantic region during the Eemian, and it involves a qualitative multi-proxy reconstruction of the Eemian lake and its development as well as a quantitative reconstruction of the regional Eemian July temperature evolution using subfossil chironomids. Attention is paid also to the identification and characterization of short-term climatic events in the Sokli record. The main contribution of this study is to increase the spatial coverage of Eemian palaeoclimatological data. Specific results include the description of the lake development, identifying phases where non-climatic variables likely affect the quantitative chironomid-based temperature reconstruction, as well as qualitative and quantitative ...
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