Late-Quaternary summer temperature changes in the northern-European tree-line region

• Main Authors: Seppa, H, MacDonald, GM, Birks, HJB, Gervais, BR, Snyder, JA
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE 2008
• Subjects: pollen; Kola Peninsula; transfer function; Younger Dryas; Holocene; HOLOCENE CLIMATIC-CHANGE; CENTRAL KOLA-PENINSULA; FINNISH LAPLAND; OXYGEN-ISOTOPE; ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION; ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY; POSTGLACIAL CLIMATE; AGE CALIBRATION; LAKE-SEDIMENTS; Arctic; Fennoscandian; kola peninsula; North-Western Russia; Lapland
• Online Access: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/165173/

We present two new quantitative July mean temperature (T-jul) reconstructions from the Arctic tree-line region in the Kola Peninsula in north-western Russia. The reconstructions are based on fossil pollen records and cover the Younger Dryas stadial and the Holocene. The inferred temperatures are less reliable during the Younger Dryas because of the poorer fit between the fossil pollen samples and the modem samples in the calibration set than during the Holocene. The results suggest that the Younger Dryas T-jul in the region was 8.0-10.0 degrees C, being 2.0-3.0 degrees C lower than at present. The Holocene summer temperature maximum dates to 7500-6500 cat yr BP, with T-jul about 1.5 degrees C higher than at present. These new records contribute to our understanding of summer temperature changes along the northem-European tree-line region. The Holocene trends are consistent in most of the independent records from the Fennoscandian-Kola tree-line region, with the beginning of the Holocene thermal maximum no sooner than at about 8000 cat yr BR In the few existing temperature-related records farther east in the Russian Arctic tree line, the period of highest summer temperature begins already at about 10,000 cat yr BP. This difference may reflect the strong influence of the Atlantic coastal current on the atmospheric circulation pattern and the thermal behaviour of the tree-line region on the Atlantic seaboard, and the more direct influence of the summer solar insolation on summer temperature in the region east of the Kola Peninsula. (C) 2008 University of Washington. All rights reserved.