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Climate Changes During the Holocene Recorded by Lakes from Europe

  • Chapter
Climate Development and History of the North Atlantic Realm

Abstract

Lake records provide an important source of information about climate changes on submillenial to millenial timescales during the Holocene. Analyses of lake records from Europe show that there are regionally-coherent patterns of change in lake status (a qualitative index of changes in water depth, area or volume) through the Holocene, reflecting climatically-induced changes in regional water budgets. Rapid changes in lake status occur in many regions of Europe between 9500–9000, 7500–7000 and 4500–4000 yr BP This apparent synchroneity in the timing of changes, although the direction varies from region to region, indicates that the changes in lake status are driven by changes in regional water balance caused by major reorganisations of the atmospheric circulation. Modelling studies indicate that changes in precipitation are the most important cause of changes in lake behaviour across Europe, because the lake water balance in temperate humid regions is largely controlled by runoff from the catchment. Changes in winter precipitation produce a much larger change in runoff and hence in lake response, than changes during the summer growing season. Sensitivity to precipitation changes is enhanced where solar radiation receipts are high: a given change in precipitation will therefore produce a larger response in the lake water balance in southern and eastern Europe than in northern or western Europe. The sensitivity of the lake water balance to changes in precipitation is dependent on the ratio of lake area to catchment area: sensitivity increases as the ratio becomes larger. The lake area to catchment area ratio at which a lake become sensitive varies with the magnitude of the precipitation change. Lake studies have the potential to contribute significantly to documenting and explaining Holocene climate changes across Europe. Continued improvements to the existing lake data base (including improvements to the lake chronologies), coupled with the application of geostatistical and modelling techniques will be required in order to exploit these archives fully.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Postfach 100164, D-07701, Jena, Germany

    Sandy P. Harrison

  2. Dynamic Palaeoclimatology, Lund University, Postbox 117, S-22100, Lund, Sweden

    Sandy P. Harrison, Ge Yu & Juri Vassiljev

  3. Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China

    Ge Yu

  4. Institute of Geology, Tallinn Technical University, Estonia Pst. 7, 10143, Tallinn, Estonia

    Juri Vassiljev

Authors
  1. Sandy P. Harrison
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  2. Ge Yu
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  3. Juri Vassiljev
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandy P. Harrison .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Universität Bremen, Klagenfurter Straße 2, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Gerold Wefer

  2. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Geological Research Division, University of California, 92093-0215, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Wolfgang H. Berger

  3. Niedersächsisches Institut für historische Küstenforschung, Viktoriastraße 26/28, 26483, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Karl-Ernst Behre

  4. University of Bergen, Department of Geology, Allégaten 41, 5007, Bergen, Norway

    Eystein Jansen

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Harrison, S.P., Yu, G., Vassiljev, J. (2002). Climate Changes During the Holocene Recorded by Lakes from Europe. In: Wefer, G., Berger, W.H., Behre, KE., Jansen, E. (eds) Climate Development and History of the North Atlantic Realm. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04965-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04965-5_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-07744-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-04965-5

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