Spring-season changes during the Late Pleniglacial and Bølling/Allerød interstadial

Abstract

Earlier spring onset and the associated extension of the growing season in high latitudes belong to the most obvious consequences of global warming. The natural dynamics of growing-season properties during past climate shifts however, are extremely difficult to reconstruct since temperature reconstructions are hardly ever seasonally resolved and the applied proxies such as chirinomid or pollen analysis are mainly sensitive to summer temperatures. Here we apply a newly developed leaf cuticle-based proxy to reconstruct growing degree-days (GDD) in a quantitative way and to estimate changes in the timing of spring onset over the last deglaciation. Cuticle analyses of fossil birch leaves preserved in lake sediments from southern Germany reveal extremely low GDD values during the Late Pleniglacial, which are rapidly increasing at the onset of the Bølling/Allerød interstadial. While temperature and GDDs show a simultaneous warming during deglaciation, a GDD decline precedes lowering of summer temperatures during the Older Dryas cooling. Later bud-burst dates support the hypothesis of a shortening the growing season during this cool pulse.