BIOLOGICAL PROXIES FOR HOLOCENE CLIMATE CHANGE IN ICELAND – PATTERNS AND ISSUES

Terrestrial records of Holocene climate reconstruction in Iceland have relied heavily on past glacial evidence to produce sequences of climatic change, although palynological data based in particular on oscillations in tree birches (temperature) and sedges reflecting expanding wetlands (precipitation?/temperature) have been used to expand and refine the palaeoclimatological record. New pollen data from Northern Iceland are used to examine patterns of vegetation change between 9600 14C yr BP and 6000 14C yr BP and are compared to evidence for tree-line change, glacial and offshore evidence. Further comparison with published chironomid-based temperature reconstruction from NW Iceland is made to introduce some of the wider issues concerning the interpretation of such data, especially the problems on non-agreement between records and the identification of climatic signals within data sets influenced by local and regional factors such as migration and soil development. Contrast are also drawn between pollen and chironomid data from very recent sediments covering the last few centuries when climate is known to have oscillated significantly, probably between temperatures characteristic of both the warmest and coldest of the last 10,000 years.