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Floral evidence for high summer temperatures in southern Scandinavia during 15–11 cal ka BP

Schenk, Frederik ; Bennike, Ole ; Väliranta, Minna ; Avery, Rachael ; Björck, Svante LU and Wohlfarth, Barbara LU (2020) In Quaternary Science Reviews 233.
Abstract

The global climate transition from the Lateglacial to the Early Holocene is dominated by a rapid warming trend driven by an increase in orbital summer insolation over high northern latitudes and related feedbacks. The warming trend was interrupted by several abrupt shifts between colder (stadial) and warmer (interstadial) climate states following instabilities of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in response to rapidly melting ice sheets. The sequence of abrupt shifts between extreme climate states had profound impacts on ecosystems which make it challenging to reliably quantify state variables like July temperatures within a non-analogue climate envelope. For Europe, there is increasing albeit inconclusive evidence... (More)

The global climate transition from the Lateglacial to the Early Holocene is dominated by a rapid warming trend driven by an increase in orbital summer insolation over high northern latitudes and related feedbacks. The warming trend was interrupted by several abrupt shifts between colder (stadial) and warmer (interstadial) climate states following instabilities of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in response to rapidly melting ice sheets. The sequence of abrupt shifts between extreme climate states had profound impacts on ecosystems which make it challenging to reliably quantify state variables like July temperatures within a non-analogue climate envelope. For Europe, there is increasing albeit inconclusive evidence for higher stadial summer temperatures than initially thought. Here we present a comprehensive floral compilation of plant macrofossils from lake sediment cores of 15 sites from S-Scandinavia covering the period ∼15 to 11 ka BP. We find evidence for a continued presence of plant species indicating high July temperatures throughout the last deglaciation. The presence of hemiboreal plants in close vicinity to the southern margin of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet implies a strong thermal summer forcing for the rapid ice sheet melt. Consistent with some recent studies, we do not find evidence for a general stadial summer cooling, which indicates that other reasons than summer temperatures caused drastic setbacks in proxy signals possibly driven by extreme winter cooling and/or shorter warm seasons.

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author
; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Deglaciation, Paleoclimatology, Plant macrofossils, Scandinavia, Summer temperatures
in
Quaternary Science Reviews
volume
233
article number
106243
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85080126349
ISSN
0277-3791
DOI
10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106243
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e3a71916-d660-4c06-b963-c3a833a25891
date added to LUP
2020-12-28 11:31:35
date last changed
2022-04-26 22:47:32
@article{e3a71916-d660-4c06-b963-c3a833a25891,
  abstract     = {{<p>The global climate transition from the Lateglacial to the Early Holocene is dominated by a rapid warming trend driven by an increase in orbital summer insolation over high northern latitudes and related feedbacks. The warming trend was interrupted by several abrupt shifts between colder (stadial) and warmer (interstadial) climate states following instabilities of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in response to rapidly melting ice sheets. The sequence of abrupt shifts between extreme climate states had profound impacts on ecosystems which make it challenging to reliably quantify state variables like July temperatures within a non-analogue climate envelope. For Europe, there is increasing albeit inconclusive evidence for higher stadial summer temperatures than initially thought. Here we present a comprehensive floral compilation of plant macrofossils from lake sediment cores of 15 sites from S-Scandinavia covering the period ∼15 to 11 ka BP. We find evidence for a continued presence of plant species indicating high July temperatures throughout the last deglaciation. The presence of hemiboreal plants in close vicinity to the southern margin of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet implies a strong thermal summer forcing for the rapid ice sheet melt. Consistent with some recent studies, we do not find evidence for a general stadial summer cooling, which indicates that other reasons than summer temperatures caused drastic setbacks in proxy signals possibly driven by extreme winter cooling and/or shorter warm seasons.</p>}},
  author       = {{Schenk, Frederik and Bennike, Ole and Väliranta, Minna and Avery, Rachael and Björck, Svante and Wohlfarth, Barbara}},
  issn         = {{0277-3791}},
  keywords     = {{Deglaciation; Paleoclimatology; Plant macrofossils; Scandinavia; Summer temperatures}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Quaternary Science Reviews}},
  title        = {{Floral evidence for high summer temperatures in southern Scandinavia during 15–11 cal ka BP}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106243}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106243}},
  volume       = {{233}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}