Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T13:25:25.831Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Temperature patterns over the past eight centuries in Northern Fennoscandia inferred from sedimentary diatoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jan Weckström*
Affiliation:
Environmental Change Research Unit (ECRU), Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 65, FIN-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland
Atte Korhola
Affiliation:
Environmental Change Research Unit (ECRU), Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 65, FIN-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland
Panu Erästö
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, P.O. Box 68, FIN-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland
Lasse Holmström
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, P.O. Box 3000, FIN-90014, University of Oulu, Finland
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +358 9 191 57788. E-mail address:[email protected] (J. Weckström).

Abstract

Establishing natural climate variability becomes particularly important in remote polar regions, especially when considering questions regarding higher than average warming. We present a high-resolution record of temperature variability for the past 800 yr based on sedimentary diatoms from a treeline lake in Finnish Lapland. The BSiZer multiscale smoothing technique is applied to the data to identify significant features in the record at different temporal levels. The overall reconstruction shows relatively large multi-centennial temperature variability with a total range of about 0.6–0.8°C. At millennial scales, the temperatures exhibit a statistically significant long-term cooling trend prior to industrialization (ΔT = −0.03°C/century). At the centennial timescale, three warm time intervals were identified around AD 1200–1300 (terminal phase of the Medieval Warm Period, MWP), 1380–1550 and from 1920 until the present. Pronounced coolness occurred between AD 1600 and 1920, indicative of the Little Ice Age (LIA). At the decadal level, certain shorter-term climate excursions were revealed. The warmest ∼10–30 yr, non-overlapping periods occurred in AD 1220–1250, 1470–1500 and 1970–2000, respectively. The classic events of MWP and LIA are evident in our record, as is also the 20th century warming.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, M.B., and Stafford, T.W. Radiocarbon chemistry of modern and ancient Arctic lake systems, Baffin Island, Canada. Quaternary Research 45, (1996). 300311.Google Scholar
ACIA Impacts of a warming Arctic: Arctic climate impacts assessment. (2004). Cambridge Univ. Press, Google Scholar
Anderson, N.J. Diatoms, temperature and climate change. European Journal of Phycology 35, (2000). 307314.Google Scholar
Appleby, P.G., and Oldfield, F. The calculation of 210Pb dates assuming a constant rate of supply of unsupported 210Pb to the sediment. Catena 5, (1978). 18.Google Scholar
Bennett, K. Determination of the number of zones in a biostratigraphical sequence. New Phytologist 132, (1996). 155170.Google Scholar
Bennion, H., Juggins, S., and Anderson, N.J. Predicting epilimnetic phosphorus concentrations using improved diatom-based transfer function and its application to lake eutrophication management. Environmental Science and Technology 30, (1996). 20042007.Google Scholar
Berger, A. Milankovitch theory and climate. Review of Geophysics 26, (1988). 624657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigler, C., Larocque, I., Peglar, S., Birks, H.J.B., and Hall, R. Quantitative multiproxy assessment of long-term patterns of Holocene environmental change from a small lake near Abisko, northern Sweden. The Holocene 12, (2002). 481496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birks, H.J.B., and Gordon, A.D. Numerical methods in Quaternary pollen analysis. (1985). Academic Press, London. 317 pp. Google Scholar
Birks, H.J.B., Line, L.M., Juggins, S., Stevenson, A.C., and ter Braak, C.J.F. Diatoms and pH reconstruction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Ser. B 327, (1990). 263278.Google Scholar
Birks, H.J.B., Juggins, S., and Line, J.M. Lake surface-water chemistry reconstructions from palaeolimnological data. Mason, B.J. The Surface Waters Acidification Programme. (1990). Cambridge Univ. Press, 301313.Google Scholar
Briffa, K.R., Jones, P.D., Schweingruber, F.H., Shiyatov, S.G., and Cook, E.R. Unusual twentieth-century summer warmth in a 1000-year temperature record from Siberia. Nature 376, (1995). 156159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaudhuri, P., and Marron, J.S. SiZer for exploration of structures in curves. Journal of the American Statistical Association 94, (1999). 807823.Google Scholar
Denys, L. Fragilaria blooms in the Holocene of the western coastal plain of Belgia. Simola, H. Proceedings of the Tenth International Diatom Symposium, Joensuu, Finland, 28th August–2nd September 1988. (1990). Koeltz Scientific Books, Koenigstein. 397406.Google Scholar
Erästö, P., and Holmström, L. Bayesian multiscale smoothing for making inferences about features in scatter plots. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 14, (2005). 569589.Google Scholar
Fallu, M.-A., Pienitz, R., Walker, I.R., and Overpeck, J.T. AMS 14C dating of tundra lake sediments using chironomid head capsules. Journal of Paleolimnology 31, (2004). 1122.Google Scholar
Fritz, S.C., Juggins, S., Battarbee, R.W., and Engstrom, D.R. Reconstruction of past changes in salinity and climate using a diatom-based transfer function. Nature 352, (1991). 706708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helama, S., Lindholm, M., Timonen, M., Meriläinen, J., and Eronen, M. The supra-long Scots pine tree-ring record for Finnish Lapland: Part II. inter-annual to centennial variability in summer temperatures for 7500 years. The Holocene 12, (2002). 681687.Google Scholar
Holmström, L., and Erästö, P. Making inferences about past environmental change using smoothing in multiple time scales. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 41, (2002). 289309.Google Scholar
Jones, P.D., and Bradley, R.S. Climatic variations over the last 500 years. Bradley, R.S., and Jones, P.D. Climate Since AD 1500. (1992). Routledge, London. 649665. New York. Google Scholar
Jones, V.J., Battarbee, R.W., and Hedges, R.E.M. The use of chironomid remains for AMS 14C dating of lake sediments. The Holocene 3, (1993). 161163.Google Scholar
Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Barnett, T.P., and Tett, S.F.B. High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures. The Holocene 8, (1998). 455471.Google Scholar
Juggins, S. C2 user guide. Software for ecological and paleoecological data analysis and visualization. University of Newcastle. (2003). Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. 69 pp. Google Scholar
Korhola, A., and Weckström, J. Paleolimnological studies in Arctic Fennoscandia and the Kola Peninsula (Russia). Pienitz, R., Douglas, M.S.V., Smol, J.P. Long-Term Environmental Change in Arctic and Antarctic Lakes vol. 8, (2004). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. 381418.Google Scholar
Korhola, A., Weckström, J., Holmström, L., and Erästö, P. A quantitative Holocene climatic record from diatoms in northern Fennoscandia. Quaternary Research 54, (2000). 284294.Google Scholar
Krammer, K., and Lange-Bertalot, H. Bacillariophyceae. Ettl, H., Gerloff, J., Heynig, H., Mollenhauer, D. Süβwasserflora von Mitteleuropa vol. 2/1, (1986). Gustav Fisher, Stuttgart/Jena. 876 pp. Google Scholar
Krammer, K., and Lange-Bertalot, H. Bacillariophyceae. Ettl, H., Gerloff, J., Heynig, H., Mollenhauer, D. Süβwasserflora von Mitteleuropa vol. 2/2, (1988). Gustav Fisher, Stuttgart/Jena. 596 pp. Google Scholar
Krammer, K., and Lange-Bertalot, H. Bacillariophyceae. Ettl, H., Gerloff, J., Heynig, H., Mollenhauer, D. Süβwasserflora von Mitteleuropa vol. 2/3, (1991). Gustav Fisher, Stuttgart/Jena. 576 pp. Google Scholar
Krammer, K., and Lange-Bertalot, H. Bacillariophyceae. Ettl, H., Gärtner, G., Gerloff, J., Heynig, H., Mollenhauer, D. Süβwasserflora von Mitteleuropa vol. 2/4, (1991). Gustav Fisher, Stuttgart/Jena. 437 pp. Google Scholar
Laird, K.R., Fritz, S.C., Maasch, K.A., and Cumming, B.F. Greater drought intensity and frequency before AD 1200 in the Northern Great Planes, USA. Nature 384, (1996). 552555.Google Scholar
Lotter, A.F., Juggins, S., (1991). PLOPROF, TRAN and ZONE. Programs for plotting, editing and zoning of pollen and diatom data. INQUA Commission for the study of the Holocene, Working Group on Data Handling Methods, Newsletter 6.Google Scholar
Mann, M.E., and Jones, P.D. Global surface temperatures over the past two millennia. Geophysical Research Letters 30, (2003). 18201824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S., and Hughes, M.K. Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries. Nature 392, (1998). 779787.Google Scholar
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S., and Hughes, M.K. Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the past Millennium: inferences, uncertainties, and limitations. Geophysical Research Letters 26, (1999). 759762.Google Scholar
Moberg, A., Sonechkin, D.M., Holmgren, K., Datsenko, N.M., and Karlén, W. Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data. Nature 433, (2005). 613617.Google Scholar
Nesje, A., and Dahl, S.O. The ‘Little Ice Age’-only temperature?. The Holocene 13, (2003). 139145.Google Scholar
Rosén, P., Segerström, U., Eriksson, L., Renberg, I., and Birks, H.J.B. Holocene climatic change reconstructed from diatoms, chironomids, pollen and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) at an alpine lake (Sjuodjijaure) in northern Sweden. The Holocene 11, (2001). 551562.Google Scholar
Seppä, H., and Weckström, J. Holocene vegetational and limnological changes in the Fennoscandian tree-line area as documented by pollen and diatom records from Lake Tsuolbmajavri, Finland. Écoscience 6, (1999). 621635.Google Scholar
Snowball, I., Korhola, A., Briffa, K., and Koç, N. Holocene climate dynamics in high latitude Europe and the North Atlantic. Battarbee, R.W., Gasse, F., and Stickling, C. Past Climate variability through Europe and Africa. (2004). Kluwer Academic Publishers, 465494.Google Scholar
Weckström, J., and Korhola, A. Patterns in the distribution, composition and diversity of diatom assemblages in relation to ecoclimatic factors in Arctic Lapland. Journal of Biogeography 28, (2001). 3145.Google Scholar
Weckström, J., Korhola, A., and Blom, T. The relationship between diatoms and water temperature in thirty subarctic Fennoscandian lakes. Arctic and Alpine Research 29, (1997). 7592.Google Scholar
Weckström, J., Korhola, A., and Blom, T. Diatoms as quantitative indicators of pH and water temperature in subarctic Fennoscandian lakes. Hydrobiologia 347, (1997). 171184.Google Scholar
Weckström, J., Snyder, J.A., Korhola, A., Laing, T.E., and MacDonald, G.M. Diatom inferred acidity history of 32 lakes on the Kola Peninsula, Russia. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 149, (2003). 339361.Google Scholar
Wolfe, A.P. Diatom community responses to late-Holocene climatic variability, Baffin Island, Canada: a comparison of numerical approaches. The Holocene 13, (2003). 2937.Google Scholar