The Little Ice Age recorded in sediments of a small dystrophic mountain lake in southern Poland

Abstract

We inferred the temperature and environmental conditions of Smreczynski Staw Lake in the Tatra Mountains, southern Poland, from a sediment record covering the last 1,500 years. Paleobiological methods (cladocera, chironomid, and diatom analyses) were used together with sedimentological analysis and dating. These studies provide new information about the timing and character of climate fluctuations during the Little Ice Age (LIA). The Medieval Warm Period ended in the Tatra region at the beginning of the thirteenth century, followed by the first episode of the LIA. The LIA was a relatively long but unstable period. The first part of the LIA was cold in the Tatra Mountains, without evidence of increasing precipitation, while the second part, after AD 1540, was cold and humid. The LIA terminated in the Tatra Mountains at the beginning of the twentieth century, although some aspects of its climatic and sedimentological regime continued until the 1920s. We also found some evidence of warming and acidification during the twentieth century.