Introduction to “Late Pleistocene and Holocene climate change in continental Asia”

Abstract

Most of the papers in this special issue on continentalAsian lake sediment records represent palaeolimno-logical studies presented at the 18th InternationalUnion for Quaternary Research (INQUA) conferencein Bern, Switzerland. INQUA members are allinvolved in investigating Quaternary geology. Themeeting in Bern attracted more than 2,000 participantsfrom 68 countries and glaciologist Christian Schlu¨ch-ter presided over the conference.A special session on Late Pleistocene and Holoceneclimate change in continental Asia was held on 22 July2011. There were 16 oral presentations and 29 postersin the session. The region is of extraordinary climaticimportance because large amounts of water are storedin the mountain ranges of High Asia, in snow, ice andfrozen ground. These water resources support billionsof people in the lower reaches of some of the world’slargest rivers. In addition, these important waterresources lie at high altitudes far from oceans, andhave experienced large climate and environmentalfluctuations on long-term, glacial-interglacial time-scales (Kong et al. 2011). Recent global warming hasalready caused a significant temperature increase onthe Tibetan Plateau (Wei and Fang 2013), and contin-ued climate shifts in the region are anticipated for thefuture. Thus, a better understanding of the magnitudeand timing of past environmental change is required toprovide reliable predictions of future water availabil-ity. Palaeolimnological studies play an important rolein addressing the issue of past regional water avail-ability (Herzschuh 2006; Chen et al. 2008; Wang et al.2010).Papers in this special issue address environmentalconditions during relatively warm climate periods inthe early and middle Late Pleistocene (Marine isotopestages [MIS] 5 and 3), during the late glacial andHolocene, and in some cases, the last few centuriesand decades. The order of presentation of the papers inthe special issue follows the above temporal sequence.The issue begins with four papers on MIS 5 or 3records. The first paper is on dated palaeolakeshorelines from the Qaidam Basin on the northernTibetan Plateau (Madsen et al.; Fig. 1). It is followedby a re-assessment of sediments from the same basin,previously regarded either as shoreline deposits ordeep lake sediments(Mischke etal.). Inthe next paper,Lai et al. present new age determinations for this site.They review a suite of radiocarbon dates, mostly fromMIS 3, which generally are younger than ages