An annually resolved record of Western European vegetation response to Younger Dryas cooling

Abstract The regional patterns and timing of the Younger Dryas cooling in the North Atlantic realm were complex and are mechanistically incompletely understood. To enhance understanding of regional climate patterns, we present molecular biomarker records at subannual to annual resolution by mass spe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quaternary Science Reviews
Main Authors: Obreht, Igor, Wörmer, Lars, Brauer, Achim, Wendt, Jenny, Alfken, Susanne, De Vleeschouwer, David, Elvert, Marcus, Hinrichs, Kai-Uwe
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
lateglacial
paleoclimatology
Western Europe
Meerfelder Maar
micrometer scale resolution
FT-ICR-MS
mass spectrometry imaging
molecular rbiomarker
fatty acids
Greenland
Greenland ice core
ice core
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://zenodo.org/record/3709137
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106198
Description
Summary:Abstract The regional patterns and timing of the Younger Dryas cooling in the North Atlantic realm were complex and are mechanistically incompletely understood. To enhance understanding of regional climate patterns, we present molecular biomarker records at subannual to annual resolution by mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) of sediments from the Lake Meerfelder Maar covering the Allerød-Younger Dryas transition. These analyses are supported by conventional extraction-based molecular-isotopic analyses, which both validate the imaging results and constrain the sources of the target compounds. The targeted fatty acid biomarkers serve as a gauge of the response of the local aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem to climate change. Based on the comparison of our data with existing data from Meerfelder Maar, we analyse the short-term environmental evolution in Western Europe during the studied time interval and confirm the previously reported delayed hydrological response to Greenland cooling. However, despite a detected delay of Western European environmental change of ∼135 years, our biomarker data show statistically significant correlation with deuterium excess in Greenland ice core at ∼ annual resolution during this time-transgressive cooling. This suggests a coherent atmospheric forcing across the North Atlantic realm during this transition. We propose that Western European cooling was postponed due to major reorganization of the westerlies that were intermittently forcing warmer and wetter air masses from lower latitudes to Western Europe and thus resulted in delayed cooling relative to Greenland.

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