@phdthesis{Wang2011,
  author    = {Wang, Yongbo},
  title     = {Late glacial to Holocene climate and vegetation changes on the Tibetan Plateau inferred from fossil pollen records in lacustrine sediments},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-63155},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {The past climate in central Asia, and especially on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), is of great importance for an understanding of global climate processes and for predicting the future climate. As a major influence on the climate in this region, the Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) and its evolutionary history are of vital importance for accurate predictions. However, neither the evolutionary pattern of the summer monsoon nor the driving mechanisms behind it are yet clearly understood. For this research, I first synthesized previously published Late Glacial to Holocene climatic records from monsoonal central Asia in order to extract the general climate signals and the associated summer monsoon intensities. New climate and vegetation sequences were then established using improved quantitative methods, focusing on fossil pollen records recovered from Tibetan lakes and also incorporating new modern datasets. The pollen-vegetation and vegetation-climate relationships on the TP were also evaluated in order to achieve a better understanding of fossil pollen records. The synthesis of previously published moisture-related palaeoclimate records in monsoonal central Asia revealed generally different temporal patterns for the two monsoonal subsystems, i.e. the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) and East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM). The ISM appears to have experienced maximum wet conditions during the early Holocene, while many records from the area affected by the EASM indicate relatively dry conditions at that time, particularly in north-central China where the maximum moisture levels occurred during the middle Holocene. A detailed consideration of possible driving factors affecting the summer monsoon, including summer solar insolation and sea surface temperatures, revealed that the ISM was primarily driven by variations in northern hemisphere solar insolation, and that the EASM may have been constrained by the ISM resulting in asynchronous patterns of evolution for these two subsystems. This hypothesis is further supported by modern monsoon indices estimated using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data from the last 50 years, which indicate a significant negative correlation between the two summer monsoon subsystems. By analogy with the early Holocene, intensification of the ISM during coming decades could lead to increased aridification elsewhere as a result of the asynchronous nature of the monsoon subsystems, as can already be observed in the meteorological data from the last 15 years. A quantitative climate reconstruction using fossil pollen records was achieved through analysis of sediment core recovered from Lake Donggi Cona (in the north-eastern part of the TP) which has been dated back to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). A new data-set of modern pollen collected from large lakes in arid to semi-arid regions of central Asia is also presented herein. The concept of "pollen source area" was introduced to modern climate calibration based on pollen from large lakes, and was applied to the fossil pollen sequence from Lake Donggi Cona. Extremely dry conditions were found to have dominated the LGM, and a subsequent gradually increasing trend in moisture during the Late Glacial period was terminated by an abrupt reversion to a dry phase that lasted for about 1000 years and coincided with the first Heinrich Event of the northern Atlantic region. Subsequent periods corresponding to the warm B{\o}lling-Aller{\o}d period and the Younger Dryas cold event were followed by moist conditions during the early Holocene, with annual precipitation of up to about 400 mm. A slightly drier trend after 9 cal ka BP was then followed by a second wet phase during the middle Holocene that lasted until 4.5 cal ka BP. Relatively steady conditions with only slight fluctuations then dominated the late Holocene, resulting in the present climatic conditions. In order to investigate the relationship between vegetation and climate, temporal variations in the possible driving factors for vegetation change on the northern TP were examined using a high resolution late Holocene pollen record from Lake Kusai. Moving-window Redundancy Analyses (RDAs) were used to evaluate the correlations between pollen assemblages and individual sedimentary proxies. These analyses have revealed frequent fluctuations in the relative abundances of alpine steppe and alpine desert components, and in particular a decrease in the total vegetation cover at around 1500 cal a BP. The climate was found to have had an important influence on vegetation changes when conditions were relatively wet and stable. However, after the 1500 cal a BP threshold in vegetation cover was crossed the vegetation appears to have been affected more by extreme events such as dust storms or fluvial erosion than by the general climatic trends. In addition, pollen spectra over the last 600 years have been revealed by Procrustes analysis to be significantly different from those recovered from older samples, which is attributed to an increased human impact that resulted in unprecedented changes to the composition of the vegetation. Theoretical models that have been developed and widely applied to the European area (i.e. the Extended R-Value (ERV) model and the Regional Estimates of Vegetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model) have been applied to the high alpine TP ecosystems in order to investigate the pollen-vegetation relationships, as well as for quantitative reconstructions of vegetation abundance. The modern pollen-vegetation relationships for four common pollen species on the TP have been investigated using Poaceae as the reference taxa. The ERV Submodel 2 yielded relatively high PPEs for the steppe and desert taxa (Artemisia Chenopodiaceae), and low PPEs for the Cyperaceae that are characteristic of the alpine Kobresia meadows. The plant abundances on the central and north-eastern TP were quantified by applying these PPEs to four post-Late Glacial fossil pollen sequences. The reconstructed vegetation assemblages for the four pollen sequences always yielded smaller compositional species turnovers than suggested by the pollen spectra, indicating that the strength of the previously-reported vegetation changes may therefore have been overestimated. In summary, the key findings of this thesis are that (a) the two ASM subsystems show asynchronous patterns during both the Holocene and modern time periods, (b) fossil pollen records from large lakes reflect regional signals for which the pollen source areas need to be taken into account, (c) climate is not always the main driver for vegetation change, and (d) previously reported vegetation changes on the TP may have been overestimated because they ignored inter-species variations in pollen productivity.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Lauterbach2011,
  author    = {Lauterbach, Stefan},
  title     = {Lateglacial to Holocene climatic and environmental changes in Europe : multi-proxy studies on lake sediments along a transect from northern Italy to northeastern Poland},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-58157},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Sediment records of three European lakes were investigated in order to reconstruct the regional climate development during the Lateglacial and Holocene, to investigate the response of local ecosystems to climatic fluctuations and human impact and to relate regional peculiarities of past climate development to climatic changes on a larger spatial scale. The Lake Hańcza (NE Poland) sediment record was studied with a focus on reconstructing the early Holocene climate development and identifying possible differences to Western Europe. Following the initial Holocene climatic improvement, a further climatic improvement occurred between 10 000 and 9000 cal. a BP. Apparently, relatively cold and dry climate conditions persisted in NE Poland during the first ca. 1500 years of the Holocene, most likely due to a specific regional atmospheric circulation pattern. Prevailing anticyclonic circulation linked to a high-pressure cell above the remaining Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS) might have blocked the eastward propagation of warm and moist Westerlies and thus attenuated the early Holocene climatic amelioration in this region until the final decay of the SIS, a pattern different from climate development in Western Europe. The Lateglacial sediment record of Lake Mondsee (Upper Austria) was investigated in order to study the regional climate development and the environmental response to rapid climatic fluctuations. While the temperature rise and environmental response at the onset of the Holocene took place quasi-synchronously, major leads and lags in proxy responses characterize the onset of the Lateglacial Interstadial. In particular, the spread of coniferous woodlands and the reduction of detrital flux lagged the initial Lateglacial warming by ca. 500-750 years. Major cooling at the onset of the Younger Dryas took place synchronously with a change in vegetation, while the increase of detrital matter flux was delayed by about 150-300 years. Complex proxy responses are also detected for short-term Lateglacial climatic fluctuations. In summary, periods of abrupt climatic changes are characterized by complex and temporally variable proxy responses, mainly controlled by ecosystem inertia and the environmental preconditions. A second study on the Lake Mondsee sediment record focused on two small-scale climate deteriorations around 8200 and 9100 cal. a BP, which have been triggered by freshwater discharges to the North Atlantic, causing a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC). Combining microscopic varve counting and AMS 14C dating yielded a precise duration estimate (ca. 150 years) and absolute dating of the 8.2 ka cold event, both being in good agreement with results from other palaeoclimate records. Moreover, a sudden temperature overshoot after the 8.2 ka cold event was identified, also seen in other proxy records around the North Atlantic. This was most likely caused by enhanced resumption of the MOC, which also initiated substantial shifts of oceanic and atmospheric front systems. Although there is also evidence from other proxy records for pronounced recovery of the MOC and atmospheric circulation changes after the 9.1 ka cold event, no temperature overshoot is seen in the Lake Mondsee record, indicating the complex behaviour of the global climate system. The Holocene sediment record of Lake Iseo (northern Italy) was studied to shed light on regional earthquake activity and the influence of climate variability and anthropogenic impact on catchment erosion and detrital flux into the lake. Frequent small-scale detrital layers within the sediments reflect allochthonous sediment supply by extreme surface runoff events. During the early to mid-Holocene, increased detrital flux coincides with periods of cold and wet climate conditions, thus apparently being mainly controlled by climate variability. In contrast, intervals of high detrital flux during the late Holocene partly also correlate with phases of increased human impact, reflecting the complex influences on catchment erosion processes. Five large-scale event layers within the sediments, which are composed of mass-wasting deposits and turbidites, are supposed to have been triggered by strong local earthquakes. While the uppermost of these event layers is assigned to a documented adjacent earthquake in AD 1222, the four other layers are supposed to be related to previously undocumented prehistorical earthquakes.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Wischnewski2011,
  author    = {Wischnewski, Juliane},
  title     = {Reconstructing climate variability on the Tibetan Plateau : comparing aquatic and terrestrial signals},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-52453},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Spatial and temporal temperature and moisture patterns across the Tibetan Plateau are very complex. The onset and magnitude of the Holocene climate optimum in the Asian monsoon realm, in particular, is a subject of considerable debate as this time period is often used as an analogue for recent global warming. In the light of contradictory inferences regarding past climate and environmental change on the Tibetan Plateau, I have attempted to explain mismatches in the timing and magnitude of change. Therefore, I analysed the temporal variation of fossil pollen and diatom spectra and the geochemical record from palaeo-ecological records covering different time scales (late Quaternary and the last 200 years) from two core regions in the NE and SE Tibetan Plateau. For interpretation purposes I combined my data with other available palaeo-ecological data to set up corresponding aquatic and terrestrial proxy data sets of two lake pairs and two sets of sites. I focused on the direct comparison of proxies representing lacustrine response to climate signals (e.g., diatoms, ostracods, geochemical record) and proxies representing changes in the terrestrial environment (i.e., terrestrial pollen), in order to asses whether the lake and its catchments respond at similar times and magnitudes to environmental changes. Therefore, I introduced the established numerical technique procrustes rotation as a new approach in palaeoecology to quantitatively compare raw data of any two sedimentary records of interest in order to assess their degree of concordance. Focusing on the late Quaternary, sediment cores from two lakes (Kuhai Lake 35.3°N; 99.2°E; 4150 m asl; and Koucha Lake 34.0°N; 97.2°E; 4540 m asl) on the semi-arid northeastern Tibetan Plateau were analysed to identify post-glacial vegetation and environmental changes, and to investigate the responses of lake ecosystems to such changes. Based on the pollen record, five major vegetation and climate changes could be identified: (1) A shift from alpine desert to alpine steppe indicates a change from cold, dry conditions to warmer and more moist conditions at 14.8 cal. ka BP, (2) alpine steppe with tundra elements points to conditions of higher effective moisture and a stepwise warming climate at 13.6 cal. ka BP, (3) the appearance of high-alpine meadow vegetation indicates a further change towards increased moisture, but with colder temperatures, at 7.0 cal. ka BP, (4) the reoccurrence of alpine steppe with desert elements suggests a return to a significantly colder and drier phase at 6.3 cal. ka BP, and (5) the establishment of alpine steppe-meadow vegetation indicates a change back to relatively moist conditions at 2.2 cal. ka BP. To place the reconstructed climate inferences from the NE Tibetan Plateau into the context of Holocene moisture evolution across the Tibetan Plateau, I applied a five-scale moisture index and average link clustering to all available continuous pollen and non-pollen palaeoclimate records from the Tibetan Plateau, in an attempt to detect coherent regional and temporal patterns of moisture evolution on the Plateau. However, no common temporal or spatial pattern of moisture evolution during the Holocene could be detected, which can be assigned to the complex responses of different proxies to environmental changes in an already very heterogeneous mountain landscape, where minor differences in elevation can result in marked variations in microenvironments. Focusing on the past 200 years, I analysed the sedimentary records (LC6 Lake 29.5°N, 94.3°E, 4132 m asl; and Wuxu Lake 29.9°N, 101.1°E, 3705 m asl) from the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. I found that despite presumed significant temperature increases over that period, pollen and diatom records from the SE Tibetan Plateau reveal only very subtle changes throughout their profiles. The compositional species turnover investigated over the last 200 years appears relatively low in comparison to the species reorganisations during the Holocene. The results indicate that climatically induced ecological thresholds are not yet crossed, but that human activity has an increasing influence, particularly on the terrestrial ecosystem. Forest clearances and reforestation have not caused forest decline in our study area, but a conversion of natural forests to semi-natural secondary forests. The results from the numerical proxy comparison of the two sets of two pairs of Tibetan lakes indicate that the use of different proxies and the work with palaeo-ecological records from different lake types can cause deviant stories of inferred change. Irrespective of the timescale (Holocene or last 200 years) or region (SE or NE Tibetan Plateau) analysed, the agreement in terms of the direction, timing, and magnitude of change between the corresponding terrestrial data sets is generally better than the match between the corresponding lacustrine data sets, suggesting that lacustrine proxies may partly be influenced by in-lake or local catchment processes whereas the terrestrial proxy reflects a more regional climatic signal. The current disaccord on coherent temporal and spatial climate patterns on the Tibetan Plateau can partly be ascribed to the complexity of proxy response and lake systems on the Tibetan Plateau. Therefore, a multi-proxy, multi-site approach is important in order to gain a reliable climate interpretation for the complex mountain landscape of the Tibetan Plateau.},
  language  = {en}
}