FIRST CHIRONOMID-INFERRED MEAN JULY AIR TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTION FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC: MULTI-PROXY RESEARCH OF A LACUSTRINE SEDIMENT CORE FROM PLEŠNÉ LAKE

Abstract

As a part of long-term ecological research in the Bohemian Forest, a sediment record was studied in a 549 cm long core from Plešné Lake (collected in 1990 by Prof. Roland Schmidt and co-workers).

In last two decades, the record, comprising the end of the Weichselian Glacial and the whole Holocene, was analysed for multiple proxies, including subfossil chironomids, cladocerans, diatoms, coccal green algae and pollen, supplemented by geochemical and mineral-magnetic methods. Here we present preliminary results of chironomid-inferred mean July air temperature reconstruction using an inference model based on modern calibration dataset from Norway and the Alpine region published by Heiri et al. in 2011.

All analyzed proxies clearly show, among other things, instability of Lateglatial climate and rapid warming at the onset of the Holocene. Chironomid-inferred mean July air temperatures for the Lateglatial vary between 6.2-8.6 oC, and the highest maximum temperature for the Holocene is 14.2 oC, whereas present-day mean July air temperatures in the lake catchment are around 13 oC.