Changes in mean temperature of the coldest (T c) and warmest month (T w), annual precipitation (P... more Changes in mean temperature of the coldest (T c) and warmest month (T w), annual precipitation (P ann) and moisture index (α) were reconstructed from a continuous pollen record from Lake Baikal, Russia. The pollen sequence CON01-603-2 (53°57′N, 108°54′E) was recovered from a 386 m water depth in the Continent Ridge and dated to ca. 130–114.8 ky BP. This time interval covers the complete last interglacial (LI), corresponding to MIS 5e. Results of pollen analysis and pollen-based quantitative biome reconstruction show pronounced changes in the regional vegetation throughout the record. Shrubby tundra covered the area at the beginning of MIS 5e (ca. 130–128 ky), consistent with the end of the Middle Pleistocene glaciation. The late glacial climate was characterised by low winter and summer temperatures (T c ~ −38 to −35°C and T w~11–13°C) and low annual precipitation (P ann~300 mm). However, the wide spread of tundra vegetation suggests rather moist environments associated with low temperatures and evaporation (reconstructed α~1). Tundra was replaced by boreal conifer forest (taiga) by ca. 128 ky BP, suggesting a transition to the interglacial. Taiga-dominant phase lasted until ca. 117.4 ky BP, e.g. about 10 ky. The most favourable climate conditions occurred during the first half of the LI. P ann reached 500 mm soon after 128 ky BP. However, temperature changed more gradually. Maximum values of T c ~ −20°C and T w~16–17°C are reconstructed from about 126 ky BP. Conditions became gradually colder after ca. 121 ky BP. T c dropped to ~ −27°C and T w to ~15°C by 119.5 ky BP. The reconstructed increase in continentality was accompanied by a decrease in P ann to ~400–420 mm. However, the climate was still humid enough (α~0.9) to support growth of boreal evergreen conifers. A sharp turn towards a dry climate is reconstructed after ca. 118 ky BP, causing retreat of forest and spread of cool grass-shrub communities. Cool steppe dominated the vegetation in the area between ca. 117.5 ky and 114.8 ky BP, suggesting the end of the interglacial and transition to the last glacial (MIS 5d). Shift to the new glaciation was characterised by cool and very dry conditions with T c ~ −28 to −30°C, T w~14–15°C, P ann~250 mm and α~0.5.
A 2 m profile of organic sediments, interbedded between two tills, was taken from the Evian high ... more A 2 m profile of organic sediments, interbedded between two tills, was taken from the Evian high plateau at Hameau de Maravant, 860 m a.s.l. (Haute-Savoie, Western Alps, France). Pollen, plant macrofossils and insect remains were used to reconstruct the local palaeoenvironment, which consisted of a moss and Carex mire, surrounded by a dense Abies and Picea mixed forest. Pollen and macrofossil data indicate that this peat layer was deposited at the end of the Eemian interglacial. The lower till should therefore be assigned to the penultimate glaciation and the upper till to the maximum extent of the Rhoˆne glacier during the Wu¨rm.
For most of the last glacial period, which ended about 10 ka BP 2 , the temperate forest species ... more For most of the last glacial period, which ended about 10 ka BP 2 , the temperate forest species were restricted to small areas (termed refugia) with a milder climate, situated mostly along the Mediterranean borderlands and around the Black Sea. Species only started to expand from these glacial period refugia with the large-scale shifts in the global climate in the lateglacial (15±10 ka BP) and the beginning of the Holocene period (10 ka BP to present).
A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in... more A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in natural populations or in provenance tests. The sampled trees belong to four different species (Quercus robur, Quercus petraea, Quercus pubescens, Quercus frainetto) and to several putative subspecies. Variation at four chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments was studied using restriction enzymes, resulting in the detection of 12 haplotypes. One haplotype was present in 36% of the trees, and six were found in 6-17% of the trees. The haplotypes are shared extensively between species and subspecies. They belong to three different lineages (A, C and E) and are phylogeographically structured in the region investigated. Haplotypes of lineage E dominate to the east of the Carpathian mountains in Romania, whereas the Carpathian Basin seems to have been colonised along several different colonisation routes, from the Balkan peninsula but also from Italy. The data support the possible role of climatic instability during the late glacial period in shaping this complex geographic structure. The presence of several secondary refugia could be inferred in the region, which have played a major role in the second step of recolonisation, at the onset of the Holocene period. #
1] The mid-Holocene (6000 years before present) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) from nine models... more 1] The mid-Holocene (6000 years before present) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) from nine models in the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project Phase 2 is studied, primarily through principal component analysis of winter time North Atlantic sea level pressure (SLP). Modeled mid-Holocene NAO and mean SLP show small changes compared to pre-industrial control runs, with a shift in mean state towards a more positive NAO regime for three of the models. Modeled NAO variability shows little change, with a small increase for some models in the fraction of time spent in the NAO-negative phase during the mid-Holocene. Proxy based reconstructions of the NAO indicate a more positive NAO regime compared to present day during the mid-Holocene. We hypothesise that there was a small NAO+ like shift in mean state during the mid-Holocene. Citation: Gladstone, R. M., et al. (2005), Mid-Holocene NAO: A PMIP2 model intercomparison, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L16707,
Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 2007
The knowledge of tropical palaeoclimates is crucial for understanding global climate change, beca... more The knowledge of tropical palaeoclimates is crucial for understanding global climate change, because it is a test bench for general circulation models that are ultimately used to predict future global warming. A longstanding issue concerning the last glacial maximum in the tropics is the discrepancy between the decrease in sea-surface temperatures reconstructed from marine proxies and the high-elevation decrease in land temperatures estimated from indicators of treeline elevation. In this study, an improved inverse vegetation modeling approach is used to quantitatively reconstruct palaeoclimate and to estimate the effects of different factors (temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric CO 2 concentration) on changes in treeline elevation based on a set of pollen data covering an altitudinal range from 100 to 3,140 m above sea level in Africa. We show that lowering of the African treeline during the last glacial maximum was primarily triggered by regional drying, especially at upper elevations, and was amplified by decreases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration and perhaps temperature. This contrasts with scenarios for the Holocene and future climates, in which the increase in treeline elevation will be dominated by temperature. Our results suggest that previous temperature changes inferred from tropical treeline shifts may have been overestimated for low-CO2 glacial periods, because the limiting factors that control changes in treeline elevation differ between glacial and interglacial periods.
Pollen stratigraphies are the most spatially extensive data available for the reconstruction of p... more Pollen stratigraphies are the most spatially extensive data available for the reconstruction of past land-cover change. Detailed knowledge of past land-cover is becoming increasingly important to evaluate the present trends in, and drivers of, vegetation composition. The European Pollen Database (EPD) was established in the late 1980s and developed in the early 1990s to provide a structure for archiving, exchanging, and analysing Quaternary pollen data from Europe. It provides a forum for scientists to meet and engage in collaborative investigations or data analysis. In May 2007 several EPD support groups were developed to assist in the task of maintaining and updating the database. The mapping and data accuracy work group (MADCAP) aims to produce an atlas of past plant distributions as detected by pollen analyses in Europe, in order to meet the growing need for this data from palaeoecologists and the wider scientific community. Due to data handling problems in the past, a significant number of EPD datasets have errors. The initial task of the work group, therefore, was a systematic review of pollen sequences, in order to identify and correct errors. The EPD currently (January 2009) archives 1,032 pollen sequences, of which 668 have age-depth models that allow chronological comparison. Many errors have been identified and corrected, or flagged for users, most notably errors in the pollen count data. The application of spatial analyses to pollen data is related to the number of data points that are available for analysis. We therefore take this opportunity to encourage the submission of pollen analytical results to the EPD or other relevant pollen databases. Only in this way will the scientific community be able to gain a better understanding of past vegetation dynamics.
New detailed biome reconstructions are proposed in East Africa from modern pollen data derived fr... more New detailed biome reconstructions are proposed in East Africa from modern pollen data derived from 150 sites located in northern Kenya (40 sites), north-western Uganda (51 sites) and southern Tanzania (59 new sites presented as pollen diagram), which are representative of the major vegetation associations occurring in seven phytogeographical regions, mosaics or centres of endemism. We use the standard biomisation method previously published for the African continent, but we reconsider the taxa assignment to plant functional types. We include in this approach all identified taxa (408) except aquatics, ferns and exotic taxa. The method is validated by comparison with local vegetation data and we show that 124 (82.6%) sites are assigned to the correct biome and that for all the biomes under investigation, the number of correct assignments always exceeds the number of incorrect ones. When an incorrect biome reconstruction occurs, mainly toward drier biomes, this is generally linked to the local open/degraded structure of the original vegetation or to the occurrence of a mosaic of open/closed vegetation. In turn, most of the reconstructions of more humid/closed biomes than the corresponding local vegetation (8.6%) remain unexplained. A comparison of our reconstructed biomes with the main East African vegetation types of White's map indicates that 121 (80.6%) sites are assigned to the correct biomes. However, the majority of sites are incorrectly reconstructed compared to Olson and IGBP maps from satellite data, mainly due to incorrect allocation of the land cover classes compared to the potential vegetation. The application of this method to our pollen data set demonstrates that modern pollen assemblages can successfully reconstruct the main modern East African vegetation types.
. A method to determine warm and cool steppe biomes from pollen data; application to the Mediterr... more . A method to determine warm and cool steppe biomes from pollen data; application to the Mediterranean and Kazakhstan regions. ABSTRACT: An objective method for the assignment of pollen spectra to appropriate biomes has been published recently. The aim of this paper is to improve the distinction between warm and cool steppes, thus refining vegetation and climate reconstruction, particularly during the Last Glacial Maximum. A set of modern pollen spectra from the Mediterranean and Kazakhstan regions, dominated today by open vegetation types, has been analysed statistically in order to relate pollen taxa abundances to warm and cool grass/shrub plant functional types (PFTs). A statistical test using modern pollen data shows that the method is able to distinguish between cool and warm steppe biomes with a high degree of confidence. The method has been applied to two fossil pollen records. The results of this exercise showed that cool steppe dominated in central Greece between 18 000 and 13 000 yr BP, while in western Iran the vegetation was at the boundary between cool and warm steppes. These vegetation types were replaced by warm mixed forest in Greece and warm steppe in Iran after that time span.
A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in... more A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in natural populations or in provenance tests. The sampled trees belong to four different species (Quercus robur, Quercus petraea, Quercus pubescens, Quercus frainetto) and to several putative subspecies. Variation at four chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments was studied using restriction enzymes, resulting in the detection of 12 haplotypes. One haplotype was present in 36% of the trees, and six were found in 6-17% of the trees. The haplotypes are shared extensively between species and subspecies. They belong to three different lineages (A, C and E) and are phylogeographically structured in the region investigated. Haplotypes of lineage E dominate to the east of the Carpathian mountains in Romania, whereas the Carpathian Basin seems to have been colonised along several different colonisation routes, from the Balkan peninsula but also from Italy. The data support the possible role of climatic instability during the late glacial period in shaping this complex geographic structure. The presence of several secondary refugia could be inferred in the region, which have played a major role in the second step of recolonisation, at the onset of the Holocene period. #
The Last Glacial Maximum has been one of the first foci of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercompar... more The Last Glacial Maximum has been one of the first foci of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP). During its first phase, the results of 17 atmosphere general circulation models were compared to paleoclimate reconstructions. One of the largest discrepancies in the simulations was the systematic underestimation, by at least 10°C, of the winter cooling over Europe and the Mediterranean region observed in the pollen-based reconstructions. In this paper, we investigate the progress achieved to reduce this inconsistency through a large modelling effort and improved temperature reconstructions. We show that increased model spatial resolution does not significantly increase the simulated LGM winter cooling. Further, neither the inclusion of a vegetation cover compatible with the LGM climate, nor the interactions with the oceans simulated by the atmosphere-ocean general circulation models run in the second phase of PMIP result in a better agreement between models and data. Accounting for changes in interannual variability in the interpretation of the pollen data does not result in a reduction of the reconstructed cooling. The largest recent improvement in the model-data comparison has instead arisen from a new climate reconstruction based on inverse vegetation modelling, which explicitly accounts for the CO2 decrease at LGM and which substantially reduces the LGM winter cooling reconstructed from pollen assemblages. As a result, the simulated and observed LGM winter cooling over Western Europe and the Mediterranean area are now in much better agreement.
In order to improve the reliability of climate reconstruction, especially the climatologies outsi... more In order to improve the reliability of climate reconstruction, especially the climatologies outside the modern observed climate space, an improved inverse vegetation model using a recent version of BIOME4 has been designed to quantitatively reconstruct past climates, based on pollen biome scores from the BIOME6000 project. The method has been validated with surface pollen spectra from Eurasia and Africa, and applied to palaeoclimate reconstruction. At 6 cal ka BP (calendar years), the climate was generally wetter than today in southern Europe and northern Africa, especially in the summer. Winter temperatures were higher (1–5°C) than present in southern Scandinavia, northeastern Europe, and southern Africa, but cooler in southern Eurasia and in tropical Africa, especially in Mediterranean regions. Summer temperatures were generally higher than today in most of Eurasia and Africa, with a significant warming from ∼3 to 5°C over northwestern and southern Europe, southern Africa, and eastern Africa. In contrast, summers were 1–3°C cooler than present in the Mediterranean lowlands and in a band from the eastern Black Sea to Siberia. At 21 cal ka BP, a marked hydrological change can be seen in the tropical zone, where annual precipitation was ∼200–1,000 mm/year lower than today in equatorial East Africa compared to the present. A robust inverse relationship is shown between precipitation change and elevation in Africa. This relationship indicates that precipitation likely had an important role in controlling equilibrium-line altitudes (ELA) changes in the tropics during the LGM period. In Eurasia, hydrological decreases follow a longitudinal gradient from Europe to Siberia. Winter temperatures were ∼10–17°C lower than today in Eurasia with a more significant decrease in northern regions. In Africa, winter temperature was ∼10–15°C lower than present in the south, while it was only reduced by ∼0–3°C in the tropical zone. Comparison of palaeoclimate reconstructions using LGM and modern CO2 concentrations reveals that the effect of CO2 on pollen-based LGM reconstructions differs by vegetation type. Reconstructions for pollen sites in steppic vegetation in Europe show warmer winter temperatures under LGM CO2 concentrations than under modern concentrations, and reconstructions for sites in xerophytic woods/scrub in tropical high altitude regions of Africa are wetter for LGM CO2 concentrations than for modern concentrations, because our reconstructions account for decreased plant water use efficiency.
The Masoko crater-lake in southern Tanzania provides a continuous record of environmental changes... more The Masoko crater-lake in southern Tanzania provides a continuous record of environmental changes covering the last 500 years. Multi-proxy studies were performed on a 52 cm sediment core retrieved from the deepest part of the lake. Magnetic, organic carbon, geochemical proxies and pollen assemblages indicate a dry climate during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (AD 1550–1850), confirming that the LIA in eastern Africa resulted in marked and synchronous hydrological changes. However, the direction of response varies between different African lakes (low versus high lake-levels), indicating strong regional contrasts that prevent the clear identification of climate trends over eastern Africa at this time. Inferred changes in Masoko lake-levels closely resemble the record of solar activity cycles, indicating a possible control of solar activity on the climate in this area. This observation supports previous results from East African lakes, and extends this relationship southward. Finally, anthropogenic impact is observed in the Masoko sediments during the last 60 years, suggesting that human disturbance significantly affected this remote basin during colonial and post-colonial times.
Aim This paper presents a probabilistic method for the characterization of pollen taxa using attr... more Aim This paper presents a probabilistic method for the characterization of pollen taxa using attributes, and for the reconstitution of past biomes. The probabilities are calculated on the basis of European floristic and pollen databases sufficiently large and exhaustive to provide robust estimates.
We selected woody angiosperms having a wide distribution across Western Europe. Species known to ... more We selected woody angiosperms having a wide distribution across Western Europe. Species known to have been spread intentionally and extensively by humans (such as the chestnut, Castanea sativa) were excluded. An attempt was made to maximize taxonomic diversity, although two genera were represented by two distinct species: Acer and Prunus, and one family by five species (Rosaceae).
A palynological study based on two 100-m long cores from Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran provides... more A palynological study based on two 100-m long cores from Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran provides a vegetation record spanning 200 ka, the longest pollen record for the continental interior of the Near East. During both penultimate and last glaciations, a steppe of Artemisia and Poaceae dominated the upland vegetation with a high proportion of Chenopodiaceae in both upland and lowland saline ecosystems. While Juniperus and deciduous Quercus trees were extremely rare and restricted to some refugia, Hippophaë rhamnoides constituted an important phanerophyte, particularly during the late last glacial period. A pronounced expansion in Ephedra shrub-steppe occurred at the end of the penultimate late-glacial period but was followed by extreme aridity that favoured an Artemisia steppe. Very high lake levels, registered by both pollen and sedimentary markers, occurred during the middle of the last glaciation and late part of the penultimate glaciation. The late-glacial to early Holocene transition is represented by a succession of Hippophaë, Ephedra, Betula, Pistacia and finally Juniperus and Quercus. The last interglacial period (Eemian), slightly warmer and moister than the Holocene, was followed by two interstadial phases similar in pattern to those recorded in the marine isotope record and southern European pollen sequences.
The Last Interglacial period, the Eemian, offers a testbed for comparing climate evolution throug... more The Last Interglacial period, the Eemian, offers a testbed for comparing climate evolution throughout an interglacial with the current warm period. We present here results from climatic reconstructions from 17 sites distributed across the European continent, allowing an assessment of trends and regional averages of climate changes during this period. We use a multi-method approach to allow for an improved assessment of the uncertainties involved in the reconstruction. In addition, the method takes into account the errors associated with the age model. The resulting uncertainties are large, but allow a more robust assessment of the reconstructed climatic variations than in previous studies. The results show a traditional three-part Eemian, with an early optimum, followed by slight cooling and eventually a sharp drop in both temperatures and precipitation. This sequence is however, restricted to the north, as this latter change is not observed in the south where temperatures remain stable for longer. These variations led to marked variation in the latitudinal temperature gradient during the Eemian. The difference between the two regions is also noticeable in the magnitude of changes, with greater variations in the north than the south. Some evidence is found for changes in lapse rates, however, a greater number of sites is needed to confirm this.
This paper provides quantitative reconstructions of the Lateglacial changes in four climate param... more This paper provides quantitative reconstructions of the Lateglacial changes in four climate parameters from two fine-resolution pollen profiles in the Gutaiului Mountains, NW Romania. Climate estimates are based on two modern analogue techniques (with and without considering vegetation types) and weighted averaging partial least squares regression (WA-PLS), giving evidence for several climatic fluctuations during the period from N 14,700 to 11,500 cal. yr BP. The comparative results of the two modern analogue techniques show consistent trends of climate changes that are also coherent at both sites, but these results appear to largely disagree compared with climate reconstruction provided by WA-PLS. The modern analogue techniques revealed four intervals with low temperatures: prior to 14,700 cal. yr BP, between 13,950 and 13,800; 13,400 and 13,200; and 12,700 and 11,700 cal. yr BP. The temperature declines were more pronounced for winter than for summer, suggesting an intensification of seasonality, which together with a drop in precipitation indicates an increase in continentality. The Younger Dryas is the most pronounced cooling phase with winter temperatures~14-16°C colder than modern conditions, annual and summer temperatures~2-5°C and~2°C, respectively below present ones. Precipitation was~400-500 mm, half that of present. During the Bølling and Allerød, summer temperatures were close to modern values (13 to 17°C), whereas winter (− 6 to − 12°C) and annual temperatures (0.5 to 6°C) as well as precipitation were (550 to 700 mm) lower, indicating more continental conditions compared to the present-day climate.
Changes in mean temperature of the coldest (T c) and warmest month (T w), annual precipitation (P... more Changes in mean temperature of the coldest (T c) and warmest month (T w), annual precipitation (P ann) and moisture index (α) were reconstructed from a continuous pollen record from Lake Baikal, Russia. The pollen sequence CON01-603-2 (53°57′N, 108°54′E) was recovered from a 386 m water depth in the Continent Ridge and dated to ca. 130–114.8 ky BP. This time interval covers the complete last interglacial (LI), corresponding to MIS 5e. Results of pollen analysis and pollen-based quantitative biome reconstruction show pronounced changes in the regional vegetation throughout the record. Shrubby tundra covered the area at the beginning of MIS 5e (ca. 130–128 ky), consistent with the end of the Middle Pleistocene glaciation. The late glacial climate was characterised by low winter and summer temperatures (T c ~ −38 to −35°C and T w~11–13°C) and low annual precipitation (P ann~300 mm). However, the wide spread of tundra vegetation suggests rather moist environments associated with low temperatures and evaporation (reconstructed α~1). Tundra was replaced by boreal conifer forest (taiga) by ca. 128 ky BP, suggesting a transition to the interglacial. Taiga-dominant phase lasted until ca. 117.4 ky BP, e.g. about 10 ky. The most favourable climate conditions occurred during the first half of the LI. P ann reached 500 mm soon after 128 ky BP. However, temperature changed more gradually. Maximum values of T c ~ −20°C and T w~16–17°C are reconstructed from about 126 ky BP. Conditions became gradually colder after ca. 121 ky BP. T c dropped to ~ −27°C and T w to ~15°C by 119.5 ky BP. The reconstructed increase in continentality was accompanied by a decrease in P ann to ~400–420 mm. However, the climate was still humid enough (α~0.9) to support growth of boreal evergreen conifers. A sharp turn towards a dry climate is reconstructed after ca. 118 ky BP, causing retreat of forest and spread of cool grass-shrub communities. Cool steppe dominated the vegetation in the area between ca. 117.5 ky and 114.8 ky BP, suggesting the end of the interglacial and transition to the last glacial (MIS 5d). Shift to the new glaciation was characterised by cool and very dry conditions with T c ~ −28 to −30°C, T w~14–15°C, P ann~250 mm and α~0.5.
A 2 m profile of organic sediments, interbedded between two tills, was taken from the Evian high ... more A 2 m profile of organic sediments, interbedded between two tills, was taken from the Evian high plateau at Hameau de Maravant, 860 m a.s.l. (Haute-Savoie, Western Alps, France). Pollen, plant macrofossils and insect remains were used to reconstruct the local palaeoenvironment, which consisted of a moss and Carex mire, surrounded by a dense Abies and Picea mixed forest. Pollen and macrofossil data indicate that this peat layer was deposited at the end of the Eemian interglacial. The lower till should therefore be assigned to the penultimate glaciation and the upper till to the maximum extent of the Rhoˆne glacier during the Wu¨rm.
For most of the last glacial period, which ended about 10 ka BP 2 , the temperate forest species ... more For most of the last glacial period, which ended about 10 ka BP 2 , the temperate forest species were restricted to small areas (termed refugia) with a milder climate, situated mostly along the Mediterranean borderlands and around the Black Sea. Species only started to expand from these glacial period refugia with the large-scale shifts in the global climate in the lateglacial (15±10 ka BP) and the beginning of the Holocene period (10 ka BP to present).
A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in... more A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in natural populations or in provenance tests. The sampled trees belong to four different species (Quercus robur, Quercus petraea, Quercus pubescens, Quercus frainetto) and to several putative subspecies. Variation at four chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments was studied using restriction enzymes, resulting in the detection of 12 haplotypes. One haplotype was present in 36% of the trees, and six were found in 6-17% of the trees. The haplotypes are shared extensively between species and subspecies. They belong to three different lineages (A, C and E) and are phylogeographically structured in the region investigated. Haplotypes of lineage E dominate to the east of the Carpathian mountains in Romania, whereas the Carpathian Basin seems to have been colonised along several different colonisation routes, from the Balkan peninsula but also from Italy. The data support the possible role of climatic instability during the late glacial period in shaping this complex geographic structure. The presence of several secondary refugia could be inferred in the region, which have played a major role in the second step of recolonisation, at the onset of the Holocene period. #
1] The mid-Holocene (6000 years before present) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) from nine models... more 1] The mid-Holocene (6000 years before present) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) from nine models in the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project Phase 2 is studied, primarily through principal component analysis of winter time North Atlantic sea level pressure (SLP). Modeled mid-Holocene NAO and mean SLP show small changes compared to pre-industrial control runs, with a shift in mean state towards a more positive NAO regime for three of the models. Modeled NAO variability shows little change, with a small increase for some models in the fraction of time spent in the NAO-negative phase during the mid-Holocene. Proxy based reconstructions of the NAO indicate a more positive NAO regime compared to present day during the mid-Holocene. We hypothesise that there was a small NAO+ like shift in mean state during the mid-Holocene. Citation: Gladstone, R. M., et al. (2005), Mid-Holocene NAO: A PMIP2 model intercomparison, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L16707,
Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 2007
The knowledge of tropical palaeoclimates is crucial for understanding global climate change, beca... more The knowledge of tropical palaeoclimates is crucial for understanding global climate change, because it is a test bench for general circulation models that are ultimately used to predict future global warming. A longstanding issue concerning the last glacial maximum in the tropics is the discrepancy between the decrease in sea-surface temperatures reconstructed from marine proxies and the high-elevation decrease in land temperatures estimated from indicators of treeline elevation. In this study, an improved inverse vegetation modeling approach is used to quantitatively reconstruct palaeoclimate and to estimate the effects of different factors (temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric CO 2 concentration) on changes in treeline elevation based on a set of pollen data covering an altitudinal range from 100 to 3,140 m above sea level in Africa. We show that lowering of the African treeline during the last glacial maximum was primarily triggered by regional drying, especially at upper elevations, and was amplified by decreases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration and perhaps temperature. This contrasts with scenarios for the Holocene and future climates, in which the increase in treeline elevation will be dominated by temperature. Our results suggest that previous temperature changes inferred from tropical treeline shifts may have been overestimated for low-CO2 glacial periods, because the limiting factors that control changes in treeline elevation differ between glacial and interglacial periods.
Pollen stratigraphies are the most spatially extensive data available for the reconstruction of p... more Pollen stratigraphies are the most spatially extensive data available for the reconstruction of past land-cover change. Detailed knowledge of past land-cover is becoming increasingly important to evaluate the present trends in, and drivers of, vegetation composition. The European Pollen Database (EPD) was established in the late 1980s and developed in the early 1990s to provide a structure for archiving, exchanging, and analysing Quaternary pollen data from Europe. It provides a forum for scientists to meet and engage in collaborative investigations or data analysis. In May 2007 several EPD support groups were developed to assist in the task of maintaining and updating the database. The mapping and data accuracy work group (MADCAP) aims to produce an atlas of past plant distributions as detected by pollen analyses in Europe, in order to meet the growing need for this data from palaeoecologists and the wider scientific community. Due to data handling problems in the past, a significant number of EPD datasets have errors. The initial task of the work group, therefore, was a systematic review of pollen sequences, in order to identify and correct errors. The EPD currently (January 2009) archives 1,032 pollen sequences, of which 668 have age-depth models that allow chronological comparison. Many errors have been identified and corrected, or flagged for users, most notably errors in the pollen count data. The application of spatial analyses to pollen data is related to the number of data points that are available for analysis. We therefore take this opportunity to encourage the submission of pollen analytical results to the EPD or other relevant pollen databases. Only in this way will the scientific community be able to gain a better understanding of past vegetation dynamics.
New detailed biome reconstructions are proposed in East Africa from modern pollen data derived fr... more New detailed biome reconstructions are proposed in East Africa from modern pollen data derived from 150 sites located in northern Kenya (40 sites), north-western Uganda (51 sites) and southern Tanzania (59 new sites presented as pollen diagram), which are representative of the major vegetation associations occurring in seven phytogeographical regions, mosaics or centres of endemism. We use the standard biomisation method previously published for the African continent, but we reconsider the taxa assignment to plant functional types. We include in this approach all identified taxa (408) except aquatics, ferns and exotic taxa. The method is validated by comparison with local vegetation data and we show that 124 (82.6%) sites are assigned to the correct biome and that for all the biomes under investigation, the number of correct assignments always exceeds the number of incorrect ones. When an incorrect biome reconstruction occurs, mainly toward drier biomes, this is generally linked to the local open/degraded structure of the original vegetation or to the occurrence of a mosaic of open/closed vegetation. In turn, most of the reconstructions of more humid/closed biomes than the corresponding local vegetation (8.6%) remain unexplained. A comparison of our reconstructed biomes with the main East African vegetation types of White's map indicates that 121 (80.6%) sites are assigned to the correct biomes. However, the majority of sites are incorrectly reconstructed compared to Olson and IGBP maps from satellite data, mainly due to incorrect allocation of the land cover classes compared to the potential vegetation. The application of this method to our pollen data set demonstrates that modern pollen assemblages can successfully reconstruct the main modern East African vegetation types.
. A method to determine warm and cool steppe biomes from pollen data; application to the Mediterr... more . A method to determine warm and cool steppe biomes from pollen data; application to the Mediterranean and Kazakhstan regions. ABSTRACT: An objective method for the assignment of pollen spectra to appropriate biomes has been published recently. The aim of this paper is to improve the distinction between warm and cool steppes, thus refining vegetation and climate reconstruction, particularly during the Last Glacial Maximum. A set of modern pollen spectra from the Mediterranean and Kazakhstan regions, dominated today by open vegetation types, has been analysed statistically in order to relate pollen taxa abundances to warm and cool grass/shrub plant functional types (PFTs). A statistical test using modern pollen data shows that the method is able to distinguish between cool and warm steppe biomes with a high degree of confidence. The method has been applied to two fossil pollen records. The results of this exercise showed that cool steppe dominated in central Greece between 18 000 and 13 000 yr BP, while in western Iran the vegetation was at the boundary between cool and warm steppes. These vegetation types were replaced by warm mixed forest in Greece and warm steppe in Iran after that time span.
A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in... more A total of 1113 oak trees from 222 populations originating from eight countries ) were sampled in natural populations or in provenance tests. The sampled trees belong to four different species (Quercus robur, Quercus petraea, Quercus pubescens, Quercus frainetto) and to several putative subspecies. Variation at four chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments was studied using restriction enzymes, resulting in the detection of 12 haplotypes. One haplotype was present in 36% of the trees, and six were found in 6-17% of the trees. The haplotypes are shared extensively between species and subspecies. They belong to three different lineages (A, C and E) and are phylogeographically structured in the region investigated. Haplotypes of lineage E dominate to the east of the Carpathian mountains in Romania, whereas the Carpathian Basin seems to have been colonised along several different colonisation routes, from the Balkan peninsula but also from Italy. The data support the possible role of climatic instability during the late glacial period in shaping this complex geographic structure. The presence of several secondary refugia could be inferred in the region, which have played a major role in the second step of recolonisation, at the onset of the Holocene period. #
The Last Glacial Maximum has been one of the first foci of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercompar... more The Last Glacial Maximum has been one of the first foci of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP). During its first phase, the results of 17 atmosphere general circulation models were compared to paleoclimate reconstructions. One of the largest discrepancies in the simulations was the systematic underestimation, by at least 10°C, of the winter cooling over Europe and the Mediterranean region observed in the pollen-based reconstructions. In this paper, we investigate the progress achieved to reduce this inconsistency through a large modelling effort and improved temperature reconstructions. We show that increased model spatial resolution does not significantly increase the simulated LGM winter cooling. Further, neither the inclusion of a vegetation cover compatible with the LGM climate, nor the interactions with the oceans simulated by the atmosphere-ocean general circulation models run in the second phase of PMIP result in a better agreement between models and data. Accounting for changes in interannual variability in the interpretation of the pollen data does not result in a reduction of the reconstructed cooling. The largest recent improvement in the model-data comparison has instead arisen from a new climate reconstruction based on inverse vegetation modelling, which explicitly accounts for the CO2 decrease at LGM and which substantially reduces the LGM winter cooling reconstructed from pollen assemblages. As a result, the simulated and observed LGM winter cooling over Western Europe and the Mediterranean area are now in much better agreement.
In order to improve the reliability of climate reconstruction, especially the climatologies outsi... more In order to improve the reliability of climate reconstruction, especially the climatologies outside the modern observed climate space, an improved inverse vegetation model using a recent version of BIOME4 has been designed to quantitatively reconstruct past climates, based on pollen biome scores from the BIOME6000 project. The method has been validated with surface pollen spectra from Eurasia and Africa, and applied to palaeoclimate reconstruction. At 6 cal ka BP (calendar years), the climate was generally wetter than today in southern Europe and northern Africa, especially in the summer. Winter temperatures were higher (1–5°C) than present in southern Scandinavia, northeastern Europe, and southern Africa, but cooler in southern Eurasia and in tropical Africa, especially in Mediterranean regions. Summer temperatures were generally higher than today in most of Eurasia and Africa, with a significant warming from ∼3 to 5°C over northwestern and southern Europe, southern Africa, and eastern Africa. In contrast, summers were 1–3°C cooler than present in the Mediterranean lowlands and in a band from the eastern Black Sea to Siberia. At 21 cal ka BP, a marked hydrological change can be seen in the tropical zone, where annual precipitation was ∼200–1,000 mm/year lower than today in equatorial East Africa compared to the present. A robust inverse relationship is shown between precipitation change and elevation in Africa. This relationship indicates that precipitation likely had an important role in controlling equilibrium-line altitudes (ELA) changes in the tropics during the LGM period. In Eurasia, hydrological decreases follow a longitudinal gradient from Europe to Siberia. Winter temperatures were ∼10–17°C lower than today in Eurasia with a more significant decrease in northern regions. In Africa, winter temperature was ∼10–15°C lower than present in the south, while it was only reduced by ∼0–3°C in the tropical zone. Comparison of palaeoclimate reconstructions using LGM and modern CO2 concentrations reveals that the effect of CO2 on pollen-based LGM reconstructions differs by vegetation type. Reconstructions for pollen sites in steppic vegetation in Europe show warmer winter temperatures under LGM CO2 concentrations than under modern concentrations, and reconstructions for sites in xerophytic woods/scrub in tropical high altitude regions of Africa are wetter for LGM CO2 concentrations than for modern concentrations, because our reconstructions account for decreased plant water use efficiency.
The Masoko crater-lake in southern Tanzania provides a continuous record of environmental changes... more The Masoko crater-lake in southern Tanzania provides a continuous record of environmental changes covering the last 500 years. Multi-proxy studies were performed on a 52 cm sediment core retrieved from the deepest part of the lake. Magnetic, organic carbon, geochemical proxies and pollen assemblages indicate a dry climate during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (AD 1550–1850), confirming that the LIA in eastern Africa resulted in marked and synchronous hydrological changes. However, the direction of response varies between different African lakes (low versus high lake-levels), indicating strong regional contrasts that prevent the clear identification of climate trends over eastern Africa at this time. Inferred changes in Masoko lake-levels closely resemble the record of solar activity cycles, indicating a possible control of solar activity on the climate in this area. This observation supports previous results from East African lakes, and extends this relationship southward. Finally, anthropogenic impact is observed in the Masoko sediments during the last 60 years, suggesting that human disturbance significantly affected this remote basin during colonial and post-colonial times.
Aim This paper presents a probabilistic method for the characterization of pollen taxa using attr... more Aim This paper presents a probabilistic method for the characterization of pollen taxa using attributes, and for the reconstitution of past biomes. The probabilities are calculated on the basis of European floristic and pollen databases sufficiently large and exhaustive to provide robust estimates.
We selected woody angiosperms having a wide distribution across Western Europe. Species known to ... more We selected woody angiosperms having a wide distribution across Western Europe. Species known to have been spread intentionally and extensively by humans (such as the chestnut, Castanea sativa) were excluded. An attempt was made to maximize taxonomic diversity, although two genera were represented by two distinct species: Acer and Prunus, and one family by five species (Rosaceae).
A palynological study based on two 100-m long cores from Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran provides... more A palynological study based on two 100-m long cores from Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran provides a vegetation record spanning 200 ka, the longest pollen record for the continental interior of the Near East. During both penultimate and last glaciations, a steppe of Artemisia and Poaceae dominated the upland vegetation with a high proportion of Chenopodiaceae in both upland and lowland saline ecosystems. While Juniperus and deciduous Quercus trees were extremely rare and restricted to some refugia, Hippophaë rhamnoides constituted an important phanerophyte, particularly during the late last glacial period. A pronounced expansion in Ephedra shrub-steppe occurred at the end of the penultimate late-glacial period but was followed by extreme aridity that favoured an Artemisia steppe. Very high lake levels, registered by both pollen and sedimentary markers, occurred during the middle of the last glaciation and late part of the penultimate glaciation. The late-glacial to early Holocene transition is represented by a succession of Hippophaë, Ephedra, Betula, Pistacia and finally Juniperus and Quercus. The last interglacial period (Eemian), slightly warmer and moister than the Holocene, was followed by two interstadial phases similar in pattern to those recorded in the marine isotope record and southern European pollen sequences.
The Last Interglacial period, the Eemian, offers a testbed for comparing climate evolution throug... more The Last Interglacial period, the Eemian, offers a testbed for comparing climate evolution throughout an interglacial with the current warm period. We present here results from climatic reconstructions from 17 sites distributed across the European continent, allowing an assessment of trends and regional averages of climate changes during this period. We use a multi-method approach to allow for an improved assessment of the uncertainties involved in the reconstruction. In addition, the method takes into account the errors associated with the age model. The resulting uncertainties are large, but allow a more robust assessment of the reconstructed climatic variations than in previous studies. The results show a traditional three-part Eemian, with an early optimum, followed by slight cooling and eventually a sharp drop in both temperatures and precipitation. This sequence is however, restricted to the north, as this latter change is not observed in the south where temperatures remain stable for longer. These variations led to marked variation in the latitudinal temperature gradient during the Eemian. The difference between the two regions is also noticeable in the magnitude of changes, with greater variations in the north than the south. Some evidence is found for changes in lapse rates, however, a greater number of sites is needed to confirm this.
This paper provides quantitative reconstructions of the Lateglacial changes in four climate param... more This paper provides quantitative reconstructions of the Lateglacial changes in four climate parameters from two fine-resolution pollen profiles in the Gutaiului Mountains, NW Romania. Climate estimates are based on two modern analogue techniques (with and without considering vegetation types) and weighted averaging partial least squares regression (WA-PLS), giving evidence for several climatic fluctuations during the period from N 14,700 to 11,500 cal. yr BP. The comparative results of the two modern analogue techniques show consistent trends of climate changes that are also coherent at both sites, but these results appear to largely disagree compared with climate reconstruction provided by WA-PLS. The modern analogue techniques revealed four intervals with low temperatures: prior to 14,700 cal. yr BP, between 13,950 and 13,800; 13,400 and 13,200; and 12,700 and 11,700 cal. yr BP. The temperature declines were more pronounced for winter than for summer, suggesting an intensification of seasonality, which together with a drop in precipitation indicates an increase in continentality. The Younger Dryas is the most pronounced cooling phase with winter temperatures~14-16°C colder than modern conditions, annual and summer temperatures~2-5°C and~2°C, respectively below present ones. Precipitation was~400-500 mm, half that of present. During the Bølling and Allerød, summer temperatures were close to modern values (13 to 17°C), whereas winter (− 6 to − 12°C) and annual temperatures (0.5 to 6°C) as well as precipitation were (550 to 700 mm) lower, indicating more continental conditions compared to the present-day climate.
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Papers by simon brewer