Milner, AM, Roucoux, KH, Collier, REL et al. (3 more authors) (2016) Vegetation responses to abrupt climatic changes during the Last Interglacial Complex (Marine Isotope Stage 5) at Tenaghi Philippon, NE Greece. Quaternary Science Reviews, 154. pp. 169-181. ISSN 0277-3791
Abstract
The discovery that climate variability during the Last Glacial shifted rapidly between climate states has intensified efforts to understand the distribution, timing and impact of abrupt climate change under a wide range of boundary conditions. In contribution to this, we investigate the nature of abrupt environmental changes in terrestrial settings of the Mediterranean region during the Last Interglacial Complex (Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 5) and explore the relationships of these changes to high-latitude climate events. We present a new, temporally highly resolved (mean: 170 years) pollen record for the Last Interglacial Complex from Tenaghi Philippon, north-east Greece. The new pollen record, which spans the interval from 130,000 to 65,000 years ago, forms part of an exceptionally long polleniferous sediment archive covering the last 1.35 million years. The pollen data reveal an interglacial followed by alternating forest and steppe phases representing the interstadials and stadials of the Early Glacial. Superimposed on these millennial-scale changes is evidence of persistent sub-millennial-scale variability. We identify ten high-amplitude abrupt events in the pollen record, characterised by rapid contractions of closed forest to open steppe environment and interpreted to indicate major changes in moisture availability and temperature. The contractions in forest cover on millennial timescales appear associated with cooling events in the Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic and Greenland regions, linked to the Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) cycles of the Early Glacial. On sub-millennial timescales, the pattern of changes in forest cover at Tenaghi Philippon display a structure similar to the pattern of short-lived precursor and rebound-type events detected in the Greenland ice-core record. Our findings indicate that persistent, high-amplitude environmental variability occurred throughout the Early Glacial, on both millennial and submillennial timescales. Furthermore, the similarity of the pattern of change between Tenaghi Philippon and Greenland on sub-millennial timescales suggests that teleconnections between the high-latitudes and the Mediterranean region operate on sub-millennial timescales and that some terrestrial archives, such as Tenaghi Philippon, are particularly sensitive recorders of these abrupt climate changes.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Abrupt climate change; Mediterranean region; Palaeoclimate; Last Interglacial Complex; Eemian; Early Glacial; Weichselian; Pollen; Greece |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Institute for Applied Geosciences (IAG) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 28 Nov 2016 14:24 |
Last Modified: | 18 Nov 2017 01:38 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.10.016 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.10.016 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:108524 |