Quantitative Palaeoclimate Reconstructions Research Articles

Palaeoclimate, chronology and vegetation history of the Weichselian Lateglacial: comparative analysis of data from three cores at Lago Grande di Monticchio, southern Italy

Palynological and chronological data are presented for the Lateglacial from three cores taken at different locations in the basin of Lago Grande di Monticchio. Plant macrofossil data from one core provide complementary evidence of the palaeovegetation. Quantitative palaeoclimate reconstructions are made from the pollen data using pollen-climate response surfaces. The chronological framework for Late-glacial events as well as the palaeoclimate are compared with other sources of evidence of Lateglacial palaeoenvironments. Surface conditions in the North Atlantic appear to be more directly linked to climatic conditions in Italy than is the temperature in Greenland. Nonetheless, the palynological record exhibits high-frequency variability that reflects high-frequency climatic changes paralleling those seen in the ice core records from Greenland.

Vegetation history and palaeoclimate of the last glacial period at Lago Grande di Monticchio, Southern Italy

A high-resolution palynological study of a 51 m core from Lago Grande di Monticchio, southern Italy, has provided a palaeonvironmental record for the last glacill. A annual lamination based chronology, supported by radiometric and tephrochronological dates, provides an absolute timescale for this record that spans 76,300 years. Correlations are established between the pollen stratigraphy, the GRIP ice core δ 18O record and foraminiferal assemblages from Atlantic core V23-81. Both Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events are reflected by changes in the pollen stratigraphy. Revised dates are estimated for Heinrich events H1–H6. A quantitative palaeoclimate reconstruction based upon the pollen data provides evidence of the climate changes in southern Italy associated with these and other fluctuations during the last glacial.

Late Devensian and Holocene palaeoecology and palaeoenvironments of the Morrone Birkwoods, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

AbstractResults are presented from analyses of pollen, vascular plant macrofossils and bryophyte remains at the Morrone Birkwoods, a site in the eastern Highlands of Scotland. The sedimentary record spans the past ca. 12 500 yr and is dated by a series of radiocarbon determinations.Quantitative palaeoclimate reconstructions are made using pollen‐climate response surfaces, with the selection of analogues constrained using evidence from the macrofossil stratigraphy. The results generally are in remarkably close agreement with those reconstructed from beetle remains by Atkinson et al. The only significant discrepancy is with respect to the extent of the warming at ca. 12500 yr BP.The palaeoclimate record indicates a marked cooling that coincides in age with the ‘Older Dryas’ event and which interrupts an overall cooling trend throughout the duration of the late‐glacial interstadial that culminates in the ‘Younger Dryas’. There is also evidence of a climate fluctuation during the first 500 yr of the Holocene. The mid‐ and late Holocene record of palaeoclimate is, in contrast, remarkably invariant until the last ca. 1500 yr, during which there is evidence of a period of warming followed by a subsequent cooling; it is speculated that these may correspond to the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ and to the ‘Little Ice Age’ respectively.The Morrone Birkwoods are noted today for their sub‐Arctic vegetation and their rich flora, with the Arctic—Alpine and northern montane biogeographical elements especially well represented. The macrofossil record indicates that the flora has long had this general character, whilst both this and the pollen record indicate that the sub‐Arctic character of the vegetation has most likely persisted since earliest Holocene times.