The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Environmental controls on modern chironomid faunas from NW Iceland and implications for reconstructing climate change

Environmental controls on modern chironomid faunas from NW Iceland and implications for reconstructing climate change
Environmental controls on modern chironomid faunas from NW Iceland and implications for reconstructing climate change
Reconstructing climate change quantitatively over millennial timescales is crucial for understanding the processes that affect the climate system. One of the best methods for producing high resolution, low error, quantitative summer air temperature reconstructions is through chironomid analyses. We analysed over 50 lakes from NW and W Iceland covering a range of environmental gradients in order to test whether the distribution of the Icelandic chironomid fauna was driven by summer temperature, or whether other environmental factors were more dominant. A range of analyses showed the main environmental controls on chironomid communities to be substrate (identified through loss-on-ignition and carbon content) and mean July air temperature, although other factors such as lake depth and lake area were also important. The nature of the Icelandic landscape, with numerous volcanic centres (many of which are covered by ice caps) that produce large quantities of ash, means that relative lake carbon content and summer air temperature do not co-vary, as they often do in other chironomid datasets within the Arctic as well as more temperate environments. As the chironomid-environment relationships are thus different in Iceland compared to other chironomid training sets, we suggest that using an Icelandic model is most appropriate for reconstructing past environmental change from fossil Icelandic datasets. Analogue matching of Icelandic fossil chironomid datasets with the Icelandic training set and another European chironomid training set support this assertion. Analyses of a range of chironomid-inferred temperature transfer functions suggest the best to be a two component WA-PLS model with r2jack = 0.66 and RMSEP = 1.095 °C. Using this model, chironomid-inferred temperature reconstructions of early Holocene Icelandic sequences show the magnitude of temperature change compared to contemporary temperatures to be similar to other NW European chironomid sequences, suggesting that the predictive power of the model is good.
chironomids, iceland, lakes, climate change, summer air temperature, carbon
0921-2728
273-293
Langdon, Peter G.
95b97671-f9fe-4884-aca6-9aa3cd1a6d7f
Holmes, Naomi
e9186dd1-acee-4cb4-9760-4d63470c6414
Caseldine, Chris J.
e0d17ba1-ee75-48b5-8a71-62093881e032
Langdon, Peter G.
95b97671-f9fe-4884-aca6-9aa3cd1a6d7f
Holmes, Naomi
e9186dd1-acee-4cb4-9760-4d63470c6414
Caseldine, Chris J.
e0d17ba1-ee75-48b5-8a71-62093881e032

Langdon, Peter G., Holmes, Naomi and Caseldine, Chris J. (2008) Environmental controls on modern chironomid faunas from NW Iceland and implications for reconstructing climate change. Journal of Paleolimnology, 40 (1), 273-293. (doi:10.1007/s10933-007-9157-3).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Reconstructing climate change quantitatively over millennial timescales is crucial for understanding the processes that affect the climate system. One of the best methods for producing high resolution, low error, quantitative summer air temperature reconstructions is through chironomid analyses. We analysed over 50 lakes from NW and W Iceland covering a range of environmental gradients in order to test whether the distribution of the Icelandic chironomid fauna was driven by summer temperature, or whether other environmental factors were more dominant. A range of analyses showed the main environmental controls on chironomid communities to be substrate (identified through loss-on-ignition and carbon content) and mean July air temperature, although other factors such as lake depth and lake area were also important. The nature of the Icelandic landscape, with numerous volcanic centres (many of which are covered by ice caps) that produce large quantities of ash, means that relative lake carbon content and summer air temperature do not co-vary, as they often do in other chironomid datasets within the Arctic as well as more temperate environments. As the chironomid-environment relationships are thus different in Iceland compared to other chironomid training sets, we suggest that using an Icelandic model is most appropriate for reconstructing past environmental change from fossil Icelandic datasets. Analogue matching of Icelandic fossil chironomid datasets with the Icelandic training set and another European chironomid training set support this assertion. Analyses of a range of chironomid-inferred temperature transfer functions suggest the best to be a two component WA-PLS model with r2jack = 0.66 and RMSEP = 1.095 °C. Using this model, chironomid-inferred temperature reconstructions of early Holocene Icelandic sequences show the magnitude of temperature change compared to contemporary temperatures to be similar to other NW European chironomid sequences, suggesting that the predictive power of the model is good.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 9 November 2007
Published date: July 2008
Keywords: chironomids, iceland, lakes, climate change, summer air temperature, carbon

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 64237
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/64237
ISSN: 0921-2728
PURE UUID: bb97e03b-d67d-42b8-bd72-01d75fc14a2e
ORCID for Peter G. Langdon: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2724-2643

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 17 Dec 2008
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:57

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Naomi Holmes
Author: Chris J. Caseldine

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×