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Reconstructing climate and environmental change in Northern England through chironomid and pollen analyses: evidence from Talkin Tarn, Cumbria

Reconstructing climate and environmental change in Northern England through chironomid and pollen analyses: evidence from Talkin Tarn, Cumbria
Reconstructing climate and environmental change in Northern England through chironomid and pollen analyses: evidence from Talkin Tarn, Cumbria
Chironomids have been used extensively for reconstructing past temperatures from the late glacial chronozone but far less work has focused on their use as temperature proxies throughout the Holocene, and little work has been undertaken within the UK. Northern England does have many detailed palaeoclimate records, although the majority of these are reconstructions from ombrotrophic peat bogs, which yield a combined temperature and precipitation proxy record. A lake sediment core from Talkin Tarn, dating back 6000 years, was therefore analysed for chironomid remains in an attempt to produce a Holocene temperature reconstruction. Although chironomids have been shown to respond to air temperature by many modern training sets, it is also known that they can respond to other environmental factors. Pollen and loss-on-ignition analyses were therefore undertaken to ascertain whether the lake had been subjected to major environmental changes. Some anthropogenic changes in land use were detected, which may have affected the lake water chemistry and sediments, but they seem to have had little direct impact on the chironomid fauna for the majority of the record. Part of the geology of the catchment is limestone, which suggests that the lake may be buffered against any changes in pH. A chironomid-inferred mean July temperature transfer function from a Norwegian training set was applied to the chironomid data and produced a reconstruction with significant fluctuations throughout the later Holocene, which were associated with cold and warm stenotherms within the assemblages. The uppermost chironomid sample from the lake core (less than 100 years old) has a reconstructed temperature of 14.6 °C (± sample-specific error of 1.18 °C), which compares well with the contemporary mean July average of 14.8 °C. It is therefore concluded that chironomids can be used to reconstruct Holocene temperature, provided the site is well-buffered in relation to pH changes and can be shown not to have been influenced to any great extent by anthropogenic disturbance.
Chironomids - Climate - Holocene - Palaeolimnology - Pollen - Temperature - Transfer function
0921-2728
197-213
Langdon, P.G.
95b97671-f9fe-4884-aca6-9aa3cd1a6d7f
Barber, K.E.
83d1acae-326d-4cb5-94b6-3d1dc78d64e9
Lomas-Clarke, S.H.
0b9b6588-020c-4045-b10a-81b6f1a97e00
Langdon, P.G.
95b97671-f9fe-4884-aca6-9aa3cd1a6d7f
Barber, K.E.
83d1acae-326d-4cb5-94b6-3d1dc78d64e9
Lomas-Clarke, S.H.
0b9b6588-020c-4045-b10a-81b6f1a97e00

Langdon, P.G., Barber, K.E. and Lomas-Clarke, S.H. (2004) Reconstructing climate and environmental change in Northern England through chironomid and pollen analyses: evidence from Talkin Tarn, Cumbria. Journal of Paleolimnology, 32 (2), 197-213. (doi:10.1023/B:JOPL.0000029433.85764.a5).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Chironomids have been used extensively for reconstructing past temperatures from the late glacial chronozone but far less work has focused on their use as temperature proxies throughout the Holocene, and little work has been undertaken within the UK. Northern England does have many detailed palaeoclimate records, although the majority of these are reconstructions from ombrotrophic peat bogs, which yield a combined temperature and precipitation proxy record. A lake sediment core from Talkin Tarn, dating back 6000 years, was therefore analysed for chironomid remains in an attempt to produce a Holocene temperature reconstruction. Although chironomids have been shown to respond to air temperature by many modern training sets, it is also known that they can respond to other environmental factors. Pollen and loss-on-ignition analyses were therefore undertaken to ascertain whether the lake had been subjected to major environmental changes. Some anthropogenic changes in land use were detected, which may have affected the lake water chemistry and sediments, but they seem to have had little direct impact on the chironomid fauna for the majority of the record. Part of the geology of the catchment is limestone, which suggests that the lake may be buffered against any changes in pH. A chironomid-inferred mean July temperature transfer function from a Norwegian training set was applied to the chironomid data and produced a reconstruction with significant fluctuations throughout the later Holocene, which were associated with cold and warm stenotherms within the assemblages. The uppermost chironomid sample from the lake core (less than 100 years old) has a reconstructed temperature of 14.6 °C (± sample-specific error of 1.18 °C), which compares well with the contemporary mean July average of 14.8 °C. It is therefore concluded that chironomids can be used to reconstruct Holocene temperature, provided the site is well-buffered in relation to pH changes and can be shown not to have been influenced to any great extent by anthropogenic disturbance.

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More information

Published date: 2004
Additional Information: The first chironomid-inferred temperature record for the late-Holocene in the UK; integrity validated by pollen record showing little catchment change, and also by successfully linking to present site temperature. NERC grant to Barber (PI); co-wrote paper with PDRAs Langdon and Lomas-Clarke. Second “most viewed” paper in JOPL during 2004.
Keywords: Chironomids - Climate - Holocene - Palaeolimnology - Pollen - Temperature - Transfer function

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 15522
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/15522
ISSN: 0921-2728
PURE UUID: edb51a4d-b13b-4750-a464-022cae014725
ORCID for P.G. Langdon: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2724-2643

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 20 Apr 2005
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:57

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Contributors

Author: P.G. Langdon ORCID iD
Author: K.E. Barber
Author: S.H. Lomas-Clarke

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