Climate of the Past Discussions www.clim-past-discuss.net 1814-9340 1814-9359 4 6 2008 10.5194/cpd-4-1237-2008 http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/1237/2008/ http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/1237/2008/cpd-4-1237-2008.html http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/1237/2008/cpd-4-1237-2008.pdf 1237 1264 2008-11-26 Late Glacial to Holocene environments in the present-day coldest region of the Northern Hemisphere inferred from a pollen record of Lake Billyakh, Verkhoyansk Mts, NE Siberia S. Müller stefanie.mueller@awi.de P. E. Tarasov A. A. Andreev B. Diekmann Freie Universität Berlin, Geological Sciences, Palaeontology Section, Berlin, Germany Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Research Unit Potsdam, Germany In this study a radiocarbon-dated pollen record from Lake Billyakh (65&deg;17'N, 126&deg;47'E; 340 m a.s.l.) in the Verkhoyansk Mountains was used to reconstruct vegetation and climate change since about 15 kyr BP (1 kyr=1000 cal. yr). The pollen record and pollen-based biome reconstruction suggest that open cool steppe and grass and sedge tundra communities with Poaceae, Cyperaceae, <i>Artemisia</i>, Chenopodiaceae, Caryophyllaceae and <i>Selaginella rupestris</i> dominated the area from 15 to 13.5 kyr BP. On the other hand, the constant presence of <i>Larix</i> pollen in quantities comparable to today's values points to the constant presence of boreal deciduous conifer trees in the regional vegetation during the last glaciation. A major spread of shrub tundra communities, including birch (<i>Betula</i> sect. <i>Nanae</i>), alder (<i>Duschekia fruticosa</i>) and willow (<i>Salix</i>) species, is dated to 13.5–12.7 kyr BP, indicating a noticeable increase in precipitation toward the end of the last glaciation, particularly during the Allerød Interstadial. Between 12.7 and 11.4 kyr BP pollen percentages of herbaceous taxa rapidly increased, whereas shrub taxa percentages decreased, suggesting strengthening of the steppe communities associated with the relatively cold and dry Younger Dryas Stadial. However, the pollen data in hand indicate that Younger Dryas climate was less severe than the climate during the earlier interval from 15 to 13.5 kyr BP. The onset of the Holocene is marked in the pollen record by the highest values of shrub and lowest values of herbaceous taxa, suggesting a return of warmer and wetter conditions after 11.4 kyr BP. Percentages of tree taxa increase gradually and reach maximum values after 7 kyr BP, reflecting the spread of boreal cold deciduous and taiga forests in the region. An interval between 7 and 2 kyr BP is noticeable for the highest percentages of Scots pine (<i>Pinus</i> subgen. <i>Diploxylon</i>), spruce (<i>Picea</i>) and fir (<i>Abies</i>) pollen, indicating mid-Holocene spread of boreal forest communities in response to climate amelioration and degradation of the permafrost layer. ACIA: Impacts of a warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004. Alpat'ev, A. M., Arkhangel'skii, A. M., Podoplelov, N. Y., and Stepanov, A. Y.: Fizicheskaya geografiya SSSR (Aziatskaya chast'), Vysshaya Shkola, Moscow, 1976 (in Russian). Anderson, P. M., Lozhkin, A. V., and Brubaker, L. B.: Implications of a 24,000-Yr palynological record for a Younger Dryas cooling and for Boreal forest development in northeastern Siberia, Quaternary Res., 57, 325–333, 2002. Andreev, A. A. and Klimanov, V. A.: Vegetation and climate history of Central Yakutia during the Holocene and Late Pleistocene, in: Formirovanie rel'efa, korelyatnykh otlozheny i rossypei Severo-Vostoka SSSR, edited by: Ivanov, B. F. and Palymsky, B. F., SVKNII, Magadan, 28–51, 1989 (in Russian). Andreev, A. A., Klimanov, V. A., and Sulerzhitsky, L. D.: Younger Dryas pollen record from Central and Southern Yakutia, Quat. Internat., 41/42, 111–117, 1997. Andreev, A. A., Klimanov, V. A., and Sulerzhitsky, L. D.: Vegetation and climate history of Central Yakutia during the Holocene and late Pleistocene, Botanicheskiy Zhurnal, 87, 86–98, 2002 (in Russian). Andreev, A. A., Tarasov, P. E., Klimanov, V. A., Melles, M., Lisitsyna, O. M., and Hubberten, H.-W.: Vegetation and climate changes around the Lama Lake, Taymyr Peninsula, Russia during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, Quat. Internat., 122, 69–84, 2004. Andreev, A. A. and Tarasov, P. E.: Pollen records, postglacial: Northern Asia, in: Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, edited by: Elias, S. A., Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, vol. 4, 2721–2729, 2007. Andreev, A. A., Grosse, G., Schirrmeister, L., Kuznetsova, T. V., Kuzmina, S. A., Bobrov, A. A., Tarasov, P. E., Novenko, E. Y., Meyer, H., Derevyagin, A. Yu., Kienast, F., Bryantseva, A., and Kunitsky, V. V.: Weichselian and Holocene palaeoenvironmental history of the Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island, New Siberian Archipelago, Arctic Siberia, Boreas, doi:10.1111/j.1502-3885.2008.00039.x, in press, 2008. Beug, H.-J.: Leitfaden der Pollenbestimmung für Mitteleuropa und angrenzende Gebiete, Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, München, 542 pp., 2004. Bobrov, A. E., Kuprianova, L. A., Litvintseva, M. V., and Tarasevich, V. F.: Spores and pollen of gymnosperms from the flora of the European part of the USSR, Nauka, Leningrad, 208 pp., 1983 (in Russian). Cwynar, L. E., Burden, E., and McAndrews, J. H.: An inexpensive sieving method for concentrating pollen and spores from fine-grained sediments, Can. J. Earth. Sci., 16, 1115–1120, 1979. Danzeglocke, U., Jöris, O., and Weninger, B.: CalPal-2007, last access: 12 July 2008 http://www.calpal-online.de, 2008. Davis, B. A. S., Brewer, S., Stevenson, A. C., Guiot, J., and Data Contributors: The temperature of Europe during the Holocene reconstructed from pollen data, Quat. Sci. Rev., 22, 1701–1716, 2003. Diekmann, B., Andreev, A., Müller, G., Lüpfert, H., Pestryakova, L., and Subetto, D.: Expedition `Verkhoyansk 2005', Limnogeological studies at Lake Billyakh, Verkhoyansk Mountains, Yakutia, in: Expeditions in Siberia in 2005, edited by: Schirrmeister, L., Reports on Polar and Marine Research, 550, 47–258, AWI Bremerhaven, 2007. Fægri, K., Kaland, P. E., and Krzywinski, K.: Textbook of Pollen Analysis, 4$^th$ edition, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1989. Fradkina, A. F., Alekseev, M. N., Andreev, A. A., and Klimanov, V. A.: East Siberia (Based on data obtained mainly in Central Yakutia), in: Cenozoic climatic and environmental changes in Russia, edited ny: Velichko, A. A., Nechaev, V. P., Wright Jr., H. E., Blyakharchuk, T. A., and Borisova, O. K., The Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 89–103, 2005. French, H. and Williams, P.: The periglacial environment, 3rd ed., Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated, 448 pp., 2007. Gavrilova, M. K.: Climate and permafrost, Permafrost Periglac., 4, 99–111, 1993. Grichuk, V. P.: Late Pleistocene vegetation history, in: Late Quaternary environments of the Soviet Union, edited by: Velichko, A. A., University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, USA, 155–178, 1984. Grimm, E. C.: TILIA 2.0 Version b.4 (Computer Software), Illinois State Museum, Research and Collections Center, Springfield, 1993. Grimm, E. C.: TGView, Illinois State Museum, Research and Collections Center, Springfield, 2004. International Council for Science (ICSU): A Framework for the International Polar Year 2007–2008, produced by the ICSU IPY 2007–2008 Planning Group, 2004. Kaplan, J. O.: Geophysical Applications of Vegetation Modelling, Ph.D. thesis, Lund University, Sweden, 2001. Kaplan, M. R. and Wolfe, P. W.: Spatial and temporal variability of Holocene temperature in the North Atlantic region, Quaternary Res., 65, 223–231, 2006. Kaufman, D. S., Ager, T. A., Anderson, N. J., Anderson, P. M., Andrews, J. T., Bartlein, P. J., Brubaker, L. B., Coats, L. L., Cwynar, L. C., Duvall, M. L., Dyke, A. S., Edwards, M. E., Eisner, W. R., Gajewski, K., Geirsdóttir, A., Hu, F. S., Jennings, A. E., Kaplan, M. R., Kerwin, M. W., Lozhkin, A. V., MacDonald, G. M., Miller, G. H., Mock, C. J., Oswald, W. W., Otto-Bliesner, B. L., Porinchu, D. F., Rühland, K. M., Smol, J. P., Steig, E. J., and Wolfe, B. B.: Holocene thermal maximum in the western Arctic (0–180&deg; W), Quat. Sci. Rev., 23, 529–560, 2004. Khotinsky, N. A.: The Holocene in northern Eurasia, Nauka Moscow, 1–198, 1977 (in Russian). Kuprianova, L. A. and Alyoshina L. A.: Pollen and spores of plants from the flora of European part of USSR. Vol. I., Acad. Sci. USSR, Komarov. Bot. Inst., Leningrad, 170 pp., 1972 (in Russian). Kuprianova, L. A. and Alyoshina L. A.: Pollen and spores of plants from the flora of European part of USSR, Acad. Sci. USSR, Komarov. Bot. Inst., Leningrad, 184 pp., 1978 (in Russian). Lozhkin, A. V. and Anderson, P. A.: A Reconstruction of the Climate and Vegetation of Northeastern Siberia Based on Lake Sediments, Paleontol. J., 40(5), 622–628, 2006. MacDonald, G. M., Velichko, A. A., Kremenetski, C. V., Borisova, O. K., Goleva, A. A., Andreev, A. A., Cwynar, L. C., Riding, R. T., Forman, S. L., Edwards, T. W. D., Aravena, R., Hammarlund, D., Szeicz, J. M., and Gattaulin, V. N.: Holocene treeline history and climate change across Northern Eurasia, Quaternary Res., 53, 302–311, 2000a. MacDonald, G. M., Gervais, B. R., Snyder, J. A., Tarasov, G. A., and Borisova, O. K.: Radiocarbon dated \textitPinus sylvestris L. wood from beyond treeline on the Kola Peninsula, Russia, The Holocene, 10, 143–147, 2000b. Peterson, G. M.: Vegetational and climate history of the western former Soviet Union, in: Global climates since the Last glacial Maximum, edited by: Wright, H. E., Kutzbach, J. E., Webb III, T., Ruddiman, W. F., Street-Perrott, F. A., and Bartlein, P. J., University of Minnesota Press., Minneapolis, 169–193, 1993. Pisaric, M. F. J., MacDonald, G. M., Velichko, A. A., and Cwynar, L. C.: The Lateglacial and Postglacial vegetation history of the northwestern limits of Beringia, based on pollen, stomate and tree stump evidence, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 20, 235–245, 2001. Popp, S., Diekmann, B., Meyer, H., Siegert, C., Syromyatnikov, I., and Hubberten, H.-W.: Palaeoclimate signals as inferred from stable-isotope composition of ground ice in the Verkhoyansk Foreland, Central Yakutia, Permafrost Periglac., 17, 119–132, 2006. Popp, S., Belolyubsky, I., Lehmkuhl, F., Prokopiev, A., Siegert, C., Spektor, V., Stauch, G. and Diekmann, B.: Sediment provenance of late Quaternary morainic, fluvial and loess-like deposits in the southwestern Verkhoyansk Mountains (eastern Siberia) and implications for regional palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, Geol. J., 42, 477–497, 2007. Prentice, C. I., Guiot, J., Huntley, B., Jolly, D., and Cheddadi, R.: Reconstructing biomes from palaeoecological data: a general method and its application to European pollen data at 0 and 6 ka, Clim. Dynam., 12, 185–194, 1996. Prentice, I. C. and Jolly, D., and BIOME 6000 participants: Mid-Holocene and glacial maximum vegetation geography of the northern continents and Africa, J. Biogeogr., 27, 507–519, 2000. Reille, M.: Pollen et spores d'Europe et d'Afrique du nord, Laboratoire de Botanique historique et Palynologie, Marseille, 543 pp., 1992. Reille, M.: Pollen et spores d'Europe et d'Afrique du nord, supplement 1, Laboratoire de Botanique historique et Palynologie, Marseille, 331 pp., 1995. Reille, M.: Pollen et spores d'Europe et d'Afrique du nord, supplement 2, Laboratoire de Botanique historique et Palynologie, Marseille, 534 pp., 1998. Rivas-Martínez, S.: Climate diagrams, worldwide bioclimatic classification system. Phytosociological Research Center, Spain. Online database, 1996–2004, http://www.globalbioclimatics.org/plot/ru-ust–.htm, last access 7 July 2008. Shahgedanova, M., Perov, V., and Mudrov, Y.: The Mountains of Northern Russia, in: Physical Geography in northern Eurasia, Shahgedanova, M., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 284–313, 2002. Stauch, G.: Jungquartäre Landschaftsentwicklung im Werchojansker Gebirge, PhD thesis, RWTH Aachen, 197 pp., 2006. Stauch, G., Lehmkuhl, F., and Frechen, M.: Luminescence chronology from the Verkhoyansk Mountains (North-Eastern Siberia), Quaternary Geochronology, 2, 255–259, 2007. Stockmarr, J.: Tablets with spores used in absolute pollen analysis, Pollen Spores, 13, 614–621, 1971. Tarasov, P. E., Webb III, T., Andreev, A. A., Afanas'eva, N. B., Berezina, N. A., Bezusko, L. G., Blyakharchuk, T. A., Bolikhovskaya, N. S., Cheddadi, R., Chernavskaya, M. M., Chernova, G. M., Dorofeyuk, N. I., Dirksen, V. G., Elina, G. A., Filimonova, L. V., Glebov, F. Z., Guiot, J., Gunova, V. S., Harrison, S. P., Jolly, D., Khomutova, V. I., Kvavadze, E. V., Osivopa, I. M., Panova, N. K., Prentice, I. C., Saarse, L., Sevastyanov, D. V., Volkova, V. S., and Zernitskaya, V. P.: Present day and mid-Holocene biomes reconstructed from pollen and plant macrofossil data from the former Soviet Union and Mongolia, J. Biogeog., 25, 1029–1054, 1998. Tarasov, P. E., Guiot, J., Cheddadi, R., Andreev, A. A., Bezusko, L. G., Blyakharchuk, T. A., Dorofeyuk, N. I., Filimonova, L. V., Volkova, V. S., and Zernitskaya, V. P.: Climate in northern Eurasia 6000 years ago reconstructed from pollen data, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 171, 635–645, 1999a. Tarasov, P. E., Peyron, O., Guiot, J., Brewer, S., Volkova, V. S., Bezusko, L. G., Dorofeyuk, N. I., Kvavadze, E. V., Osipova, I. M., and Panova, N. K.: Last Glacial Maximum climate of the Former Soviet Union and Mongolia reconstructed from pollen and plant macrofossil data. Clim. Dyn., 15, 227–240, 1999b. Tarasov, P. E., Granoszewski, W., Bezrukova, E. V., Brewer, S., Nita, M., Abzaeva, A. A., and Oberhänsli, H.: Quantitative reconstruction of the Last Interglacial vegetation and climate based on the pollen record from Lake Baikal, Russia, Clim. Dynam., 25, 625–637, 2005. Tarasov, P. E., Williams J. W., Andreev, A. A., Nakagawa, T., Bezrukova, E. V., Herzschuh, U., Igarashi, Y., Müller, S., Werner, K., and Zheng, Z.: Satellite- and pollen-based quantitative woody cover reconstructions for northern Asia: Verification and application to late-Quaternary pollen data, Earth Planet. Sc Lett., 264, 284–298, 2007. Texier, D., de Noblet, N., Harrison, S. P., Haxeltine, A., Jolly, D., Joussaume, S., Laarif, F., Prentice, I. C., and Tarasov, P.: Quantifying the role of biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks in climate change: coupled model simulations for 6000 years BP and comparison with palaeodata for northern Eurasia and northern Africa, Clim. Dynam., 13, 865–882, 1997. Velichko, A. A., Andreev, A. A., and Klimanov, V. A.: Climate and vegetation dynamics in the tundra and forest zone during the Late Glacial and Holocene, Quat. Internat., 41/42, 71–96, 1997. Velichko, A. A., Catto, N., Drenava, A. N., Klimanov, V. A., Kremenetski, K. V., and Nechaev, V. P.: Climate changes in East Europe and Siberia at the Late glacial-holocene transition, Quatern. Int., 91, 75–99, 2002. Walter, H.: Die Vegetation Osteuropas, Nord-und Zentralasiens, Gustav-Fischer-Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany, 462 pp., 1974.