Frederik Schenk, Ole Bennike, Minna Väliranta, Rachael Avery, Svante Björck, Barbara Wohlfarth
The dataset provides a compilation of published and unpublished plant micro- and macrofossils from 15 sites across Denmark and southern Sweden.
The sedimental archives cover the period from the pre-Bølling to the Preboreal (~15,000 to ~11,000 years BP) and allow for a detailed reconstruction of local vegetation changes in response to rapid climate shifts during the Lateglacial and the transition into our current warm period ~11,700 BP, the early Holocene. For a small fraction of taxa contained in the dataset (13.7 %), we provide reconstructions of past minimum July temperatures based on the presence of climate indicator plant species in the sediment.
These data provide floral evidence for surprisingly high summer temperatures throughout the studied period. In the same time, around 22.1 % of the taxa can be identified as cold-adapted (heliophyte) species, possibly indicating harsh and long winter conditions and only short warm summers before the onset of the early Holocene.
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Citation
Frederik Schenk, Ole Bennike, Minna Väliranta, Rachael Avery, Svante Björck, Barbara Wohlfarth (2020) Compilation of local vegetation and July temperature reconstructions for southern Scandinavia 15,000 to 11,000 years ago. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/schenk-2020-paleovegetation-1
References
Schenk, F., Bennike, O., Väliranta, M., Avery, R., Björck, S., Wohlfarth, B. (2020). Floral evidence for high summer temperatures in southern Scandinavia during 15 – 11 cal ka BP. Quat. Sci. Rev. 233, 106243, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106243
Schenk, F., Väliranta, M., Muschitiello, F., Tarasov, L., Heikkilä, M., Björck, S., Brandefelt, J., Johannson A., Näslund, J. O., Wohlfarth, B. (2018). Warm summers during the Younger Dryas cold reversal. Nat. Commun. 9, 1634, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04071-5
Väliranta, M., Salonen, J., Heikkilä, M., Amon, L.K., Helmens, K., Klimaschewski, A., Kuhry, P., Kultti, S., Poska, A., Shala, S., Veski, S., Birks, H.H. (2015). Plant macrofossil evidence for an early onset of the Holocene summer thermal maximum in northernmost Europe. Nat. Commun. 6, 6809, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7809
Data description
In total, the compilation consists of data for N=881 plant micro-/macrofossils representing the local presence of aquatic, emergent and terrestrial vegetation from 15 (paleo-)lake sites across southern Scandinavia. The lake sediment cores cover the time periods from the pre-Bølling to the Preboreal (~15,000 to ~11,000 years BP).
The Lateglacial to Early Holocene time period has been subdivided into major cold and warm states, namely the three stadials of the pre-Bølling, Older Dryas and Younger Dryas, the two interstadials of the Bølling and Allerød, and in addition the onset of the current interglacial, the early Holocene (Preboreal).
Along with a complete list of all identified plant taxa, minimum July temperature reconstructions (°C) are provided for taxa which qualify as quantified climate indicator plant species (13.7 % of the dataset). On average, 22.1 % of the taxa in the dataset have been classified as cold-adapted/heliophytes. The plant indicator species provide evidence for remarkably high summer temperatures throughout the studied period. For details see Schenk et al. (2020).
The dataset is included in one excel (xlsx) spreadsheet file having two sheets with the following names:
A.0 Meta Data
A.1 Plant compilation & Temp.
The same data are also available in two comma-separated values (csv) files. Character set: Western Europe (ISO-8859-15/EURO).