Late- Pleniglacial climatic and environmental evolution

A multi-proxy palaeolimnological approach will be applied to a Late-Pleniglacial sediment core section of Längsee. The lake is located in the southern pre-Alpine lowland of Austria close to the endmoraines of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Längsee offers the unique opportunity of climate reconstruction for a time-window with lacking quantitative climate inference in the Alps. For this reason we combine novel diatom- and chrysophyte cyst- based transfer functions for quantitative seasonal climate inference from Alpine lake calibration data sets with ostracod stable oxygen isotope measurement that is another strong climate proxy. In the case that solar forcing mechanisms trigger major climate oscillations, they should be contemporaneous at different sites. Hence, we compare the biogenic stable oxygen isotope curves from the study site with the Greenland ice-core oxygen isotope records. If tephras are present, we will also use them for synchronisation of climate on a larger scale. Additionally we use pollen, geochemical, and mineralogical analyses in order to study the impact of climate on ecosystems under the aspects of rapid climate changes and extremes, and seasonal climate patterns.

A multi-proxy palaeolimnological approach will be applied to a Late-Pleniglacial sediment core section of Längsee. The lake is located in the southern pre-Alpine lowland of Austria close to the endmoraines of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Längsee offers the unique opportunity of climate reconstruction for a time-window with lacking quantitative climate inference in the Alps. For this reason we combine novel diatom- and chrysophyte cyst- based transfer functions for quantitative seasonal climate inference from Alpine lake calibration data sets with ostracod stable oxygen isotope measurement that is another strong climate proxy. In the case that solar forcing mechanisms trigger major climate oscillations, they should be contemporaneous at different sites. Hence, we compare the biogenic stable oxygen isotope curves from the study site with the Greenland ice-core oxygen isotope records. If tephras are present, we will also use them for synchronisation of climate on a larger scale. Additionally we use pollen, geochemical, and mineralogical analyses in order to study the impact of climate on ecosystems under the aspects of rapid climate changes and extremes, and seasonal climate patterns.