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Quantitative reconstructions of late Quaternary vegetation, temperature and atmospheric precipitation variability in eastern Siberia: Evaluation of ecosystem stability/instability during episodes of rapid climate change

Subject Area Palaeontology
Term from 2010 to 2014
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 182070089
 
Final Report Year 2014

Final Report Abstract

The scientific aim of this project was a chronologically well-constrained high-resolution reconstruction of the late Quaternary vegetation and climate fluctuations of eastern Siberia, as basis for the development of future environmental scenarios for this sensitive and economically important region of Eurasia with extreme continental climate and boreal forest vegetation. The vegetation development was reconstructed on the basis of pollen analysis in combination with n-alkanes (testate amoebae ongoing) from lake sediments and peat profiles for last glacial and Holocene periods. The regional focus was laid on southern and central Yakutia, with the Lake Kotokel from the Baikal Region and Lake Billyakh core sediments from the western Verkhoyansk Mountains serving as key palaeoenvironmental archives, respectively. The analytical and reconstruction results valuably contribute to a better understanding of environmental dynamics and ecosystem stability/instability in the study region and are an important segment in the regional reconstructions of late Quaternary vegetation and climate in northern and central Asia, including north-eastern Siberia and the Lake Baikal region. The performed comparison of these results with climate and vegetation model experiments for the interglacials MIS 5 and MIS 11 showed general agreement but pointed out further research questions concerning, e.g., disagreement between precipitation reconstruction and modelling results.

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