A Late‐glacial chironomid record from Hawes Water, northwest England

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a high-resolution Late-glacial chironomid stratigraphy from Hawes Water, a small carbonate lake in northern Lancashire. The samples were from a core taken from the terrestrialised margin of the present lake, which represents an intermediate depth between the true littoral and the profundal. The chironomid assemblage showed a high degree of sensitivity to both broad-scale and short-term temperature changes. Comparison with an existing proxy temperature record ( 18 O) for the site confirmed the presence of four temperature inversions within the Late-glacial Interstadial. A mean July air temperature inference model, derived from acid, soft-water lakes in Norway and Svalbard, was applied to the data. Despite the absence of carbonate lakes within the Norwegian training set, there was a close similarity between trends in estimated July air temperature and the 18 O trace, with a particularly strong correspondence in the periods of clay deposition. This suggests that this model is highly robust. The inferred maximum Interstadial temperature was 13.4 C, dropping initially to 7.5 C in the Loch Lomond Stadial. Temperatures reach a maximum of nearly 10 C in this period, cool for a short period before rising rapidly to 13.2 C at the start of the Holocene. These temperatures are similar to but slightly higher than those estimated for Whitrig Bog, southeast Scotland, and lower than those inferred from coleopteran-based models for sites in South Wales.

Late-glacial chironomid-based temperature reconstructions for Lago Piccolo di Avigliana in the southwestern Alps (Italy)

“…At LPA highest inferred temperatures were recorded at the onset of the Bølling, and they slowly decreased during the Allerød. A similar trend was reconstructed with chironomid assemblages at Whitrig Bog, southeastern Scotland (Brooks and Birks, 2000a), at Hawes Water, northern England (Bedford et al, 2004), and at Egelsee (Larocque et al, submitted for publication), as well as by δ 18 O records north of the Alps (von Grafenstein et al, 1999(von Grafenstein et al, , 2000Frisia et al, 2005). At Lago di Lavarone, however, Allerød chironomid-inferred temperatures were slightly higher (by 1°C) than during the Bølling, suggesting that a temperature change might explain the expansion of thermophilous tree-species at that time, as discussed by Finsinger (2004).…”

“…Coldest air temperatures were inferred at LPA during the Younger Dryas, when chironomid taxa having cold/ (Bedford et al, 2004) and at Whitrig Bog (Brooks and Birks, 2000a) but in a range similar to that recorded in northeastern Italy (Heiri et al, in press) (Table 3). Early-Holocene temperatures were generally high at the beginning of the Holocene in the northern Alps and northern Europe (Porinchu and Cwynar, 2000;Stefanova et al, 2003;Caseldine et al, 2003;Heiri et al, 2004Heiri et al, , 2003Larocque and Hall, 2004).…”

Delayed maximum northern European summer temperatures during the Last Interglacial as a result of Greenland Ice Sheet melt

“…The zone C4 (2.60-1.08 m) assemblage is dominated by intermediate (T. mendax and C. anthracinus) and warm-water taxa (C. plumosus and Glyptotendipes). The uppermost zone C5 (1.08-0.47 m) preserves the reemergence of what are characterized as cold-water taxa in the modern training set, especially Corynocera ambigua (Bedford et al, 2004;Larocque-Tobler et al, 2010;Luoto et al, 2008), while a few warm-water taxa are also present, many of which are reported for this period in European LIG records (Brodersen and Bennike, 2003;Helmens et al, 2015). For a discussion of significance testing and potential bias issues, see the Data Repository.…”

Chironomid-based palaeotemperature estimates for northeast Finland during Oxygen Isotope Stage 3

“…The concentration of chironomid head capsules is low throughout zone S-Ch3, between 5 hc/g and 10 hc/g. The occurrence of Microtendipes could indicate temperatures that are best classified as intermediate to warm (Bedford et al 2004;Brooks and Birks 2000) and the gradual warming trend that was observed in zone S-Ch2 was probably interrupted.…”