Synchronous Holocene climatic oscillations recorded on the Swiss Plateau and at timberline in the Alps

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12268105
AutoresJean Nicolas Haas (0000-0002-3237-7887, Department of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland; Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto M5S 2C6, Canada; Department of Botany, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks St., Toronto M5S 3B2, Ontario, Canada, autor de correspondencia), Isabelle Richoz (Musée et Jardins Botaniques cantonaux de Lausanne, 14 bis, avenue de Cour, CH-1007 Lausanne, Switzerland), W Tinner (0000-0001-7352-0144), Lucia Wick (0000-0003-2351-3151, University of Bern)
Año1998
Volumen8
Número3
Páginas301-309
Fecha de publicación1998-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Holocene (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0959-6836 • E-ISSN: 1477-0911
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1191/095968398675491173
OpenAlexW2017241772
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas132
Referencias citadas22

Eight synchronous pre-Roman cold phases were found at 9600–9200, 8600–8150, 7550–6900, 6600– 6200, 5350–4900, 4600–4400, 3500–3200 and 2600–2350 radiocarbon years BP by reconstructing past climate at two sites on the Swiss Plateau and at timberline in the Alps. The cooling events during the early-and mid-Holocene represent temperature values similar to today, and apparently the onset of cooling events represents a deviation from today's mean annual temperature of about 1°C and is triggered at a 1000-year periodicity. At Wallisellen-Langachermoos (440 m), a former oligotrophic lake near Zürich, the correlation between sum mertime lake levels and the seed production of the amphi-Atlantic aquatic plant Najas flexilis was used to reconstruct lake levels over a 3000-year period during the first part of the Holocene. At Lake Seedorf on the western Swiss Plateau (609 m) the sedimentological, palynological and macrofossil record revealed fluctuations of lake levels for the complete Holocene. From Lago Basso in the southern Alps (2250 m, Val San Giacomo near Splügen Pass, Northern Italy) the terrestrial plant macrofossils – especially Pinus cembra and Larix – allowed the reconstruction of timberline fluctuations controlled by climate. A similar climatic pattern was found at Gouillé Rion pond in the central Swiss Alps (2343 m, Val d'Hérémence) with plant macrofossils and pollen concentrations and percentages. We postulate that these climatic events are detectable throughout central Europe by independent methods in combination with precise AMS-radiocarbon datings on terrestrial plant remains. Our data fit other proxy records of regional climatic change, such as cool intervals from Greenland ice cores, glacier movements in the Swiss and Austrian Alps, and dendro-densitometry on subfossil wood, as well as the palaeoclimatic data from the Jura Mountains of France obtained by sedimentological analyses. Thus our data indicate that the Northern Hemisphere climate was less stable during the Holocene than previously believed

Biology · Geography · Holocene · Holocene climatic optimum · Macrofossil · Palynology · Physical geography · Plateau (mathematics · Pollen · Radiocarbon dating · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Tree-ring climate responses · Ecology · Geology · Oceanography · Paleontology