DECADALLY-RESOLVED EARLY HOLOCENE TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION RECONSTRUCTIONS FROM THE EASTERN AND WESTERN COASTS OF BAFFIN BAY

Quantifying ice sheet responses to climate change is critical for predicting sea level rise in a warming world. In particular, increased precipitation may play an important role in offsetting ice sheet mass balance losses caused by rising temperatures. Past intervals of rapid climate change occurring on human-relevant timescales provide natural experiments for quantifying ice sheet response to temperature and precipitation. During the early Holocene, retreat of the Laurentide and Greenland ice sheets was punctuated by rapid and dramatic advances, likely in response to abrupt climate changes at 9.3 and 8.2 ka. The character of early Holocene decadal-scale temperature and precipitation changes near the margins of these ice sheets remains unknown, however, so direct comparison of climate and ice sheet reconstructions currently is not possible. Leaf wax hydrogen isotopes reflect temperature and precipitation changes in the Arctic. We will present decadally-resolved multiproxy records of early Holocene terrestrial temperature and precipitation using leaf wax hydrogen isotopes and a suite of organic and inorganic proxies from well-dated lake sediment sequences on Nuusuuaq, western Greenland and on the Clyde Foreland, eastern Baffin Island.