This thesis focuses on responses in raised bogs to changes in the effective humidity during the Holocene. Raised bogs are terrestrial deposits that can provide contiguous records of past climate changes. Information on and knowledge about past changes in climate is crucial for our understanding of natural climate variability. Analyses on different spatial and temporal scales have been conducted on a number of raised bogs in south-central Sweden in order to gain more knowledge about Holocene climate variability. Peatlands are useful as palaeoenvironmental archives because they develop over the course of millennia and provide a multi-faceted contiguous outlook on the past. Peat humification, a proxy for bog surface wetness, has been used to reconstruct palaeoclimate. In addition measurements of carbon and nitrogen on sub-recent peat from two bogs have been performed. The chronologies have been constrained by AMS radiocarbon dates and tephrochronology and by SCPs for the sub-recent peat. A comparison between a peat humification record from Värmland, south-central Sweden, and a dendrochronological record from Jämtland, north-central Sweden, indicates several synchronous changes between drier and wetter climate. This implies that changes in hydrology operate on a regional scale. In a high resolution study of two bogs in Uppland, south-central Sweden, C, N and peat humification have been compared to bog water tables inferred from testate amoebae and with meteorological data covering the last 150 years. The results indicate that peat can be subjected to secondary decomposition, resulting in an apparent lead in peat humification and C/N compared to biological proxies and meteorological data. Several periods of wetter conditions are indicated from the analysis of five peat sequences from three bogs in Värmland. Wetter conditions around especially c. 4500, 3500, 2800 and 1700-1000 cal yr BP can be correlated to several other climate records across the North Atlantic region and Scandinavia, indicating wetter and/or cooler climatic conditions at these times. Frequency analyses of two bogs indicate periodicities between 200 and 400 years that may be caused by cycles in solar activity.

Lake sediments are frequently used as archives of climate and environmental change. Minerogenic sediment variability in alpine lakes is often used to reconstruct past glacier and slope process activity. Alpine lake sediments can however have many different origins, which may induce errors in paleoenvironmental reconstructions. The aim of this project was to enhance the understanding of minerogenic lake sedimentation in alpine lakes and improve their use as environmental archives. Catchment geomorphology and Holocene sediment sequences were analysed for five alpine lakes. Several minerogenic sediment sources were detected in catchments and sediment sequences. Slope-, fluvial-, periglacial-, nival- and aeolian sediment transportation processes contribute to create complex lake sediment patterns. Large variations in sedimentation rates were discovered within and between lakes, which has implications for sampling strategies and age-model constructions. Similar fine-grained minerogenic laminations were found in four of the investigated lakes, despite large differences in setting. The demonstrated similarity between glacial and non-glacial lakes may complicate interpretations of glaciolacustrine sediment signals. The main conclusion is that lake sedimentation in alpine environments is highly dependent on several geomorphological factors. All lakes should therefore be viewed as unique and the geomorphology should be thoroughly investigated before environmental reconstructions are based on lake sediment proxies. This study has confirmed the multi-source origin of alpine lake sediment, which also opens possibilities of more multi-faceted paleoenvironmental studies. Different process-proxies could potentially be used to separate different climate signals, e.g. precipitation, temperature and wind, in lake sediments. Analysis of grain-size distribution, detailed mineralogy and magnetic mineralogy in combination with X-ray radiography are suggested methods for such reconstructions.

The main aim of this thesis was to contribute with detailed information of regional environmental change during the Holocene through studies of speleothems and their growth environments from two caves, Korallgrottan and Labyrintgrottan in northwestern Sweden, and a cellar vault in Uppsala. This was done through studies of stable isotopes and luminescence properties in the speleothems in combination with a detailed monitoring study in Korallgrottan. The monitoring study suggests that stalagmites fed by stalactites with slow and stable drip rates from deep inside the cave may be suitable as palaeoclimate archives. Similarities between oxygen isotope signals of contemporary samples from Labyrintgrottan and Korallgrottan emphasize the potential of speleothems from Labyrintgrottan to also provide high resolution regional palaeoclimate information. Except for a number of cold events stalagmite δ18O records from northern Scandinavia indicate that temperatures were warmer than today between 9500 and 6000 years ago. During this period the interval between 7800 and 6000 years ago seems to have been the warmest. The area above Labyrintgrottan was most likely covered by much denser vegetation than today at the time of stalagmite growth (9500-7500 years ago) and was, unlike today, probably situated below the local tree-limit between 9000 and 8000 years ago. The δ18O record of a stalagmite from Korallgrottan covering the last 4000 years agrees with the concept of a warmer period, the so called Medieval Warm Period, centred around AD1000 and a colder period, the so called Little Ice Age, somewhere between AD1000 and today. Studies of luminescence properties in fast growing speleothems from Uppsala indicate that the variations in luminescence intensity are annual and that the annual lamiae of the luminescent record represent a flush of organic material.

This thesis presents palaeoenvironmental data from equatorial Africa covering two important time intervals; i) the warming period forming the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and ii) the last millennium. The Empakaai Crater, in northern Tanzania contains a lake from where sediment cores, spanning two time-slices 14.8-9.3 ka and 800-2000 AD, have been studied. Palaeoecological and palaeohydrological reconstruction is based on a multitude of proxies from the sediments, representing both catchment environment and the lakes aquatic ecosystem response. Between 14.8 and 10 ka the catchment vegetation and lake hydrology responded to both regional climate changes and local environment, but with different amplitude and frequency, reflecting temporal and spatial lags between the two systems. However, at c 10 ka both lake conditions and catchment vegetation showed drastic changes towards drier conditions. The record covering the last millennium reveals environmental changes related to climate and human activities. The catchment’s vegetation was affected by frequent fires, most probably human induced, while near shore vegetation responded to lake level fluctuation associated with rainfall variability. About 15 km from Empakaai Crater is an extensive abandoned irrigation system, the Engaruka complex, which was in active use between c 1400 AD and 1840 AD. By comparing a number of social and environmental factors potentially influencing the societal development at Engaruka it is shown that wet climate conditions have had positive effects on the societal development but also that dry climate conditions were not always disastrous to the society. The resemblance of the pollen taxa present is strong between the two time slices and pollen representing catchment conditions respond in similar manner in both records. The lake conditions are however very different between the two periods Thus the lake responds to both long and short term changes of variable amplitude, while the catchment vegetation seems to responds to high amplitude, low frequency changes.

Ice cores are considered the gold standard for recording past climate and biogeochemical changes. However, gas records derived from ice core analysis have until now been largely limited to centennial and longer timescales because sufficient temporal resolution and analytical precision have been lacking, except during rare times when atmospheric concentrations changed rapidly. In this thesis I used a newly developed methane measurement line to make high-resolution, high-precision measurements of methane during the late Holocene (2800 years BP to present). This new measurement line is capable of an analytical precision of < 3 ppb using ~120 g samples whereas the previous highest resolution measurements attained a precision of ± 4.1 ppb using 500-1500g samples [MacFarling Meure et al., 2006]. The reduced sample size requirements as well as automation of a significant portion of the analysis process have enabled me to make >1500 discrete ice core methane measurements and construct the highest resolution records of methane available over the late Holocene. Ice core samples came from the recently completed West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide ice core which has as one of its primary scientific objectives to produce the highest resolution records of greenhouse gases, and from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP2) ice core which is a proven paleoclimate archive. My thesis has the following three components. I first used a shallow ice core from WAIS Divide (WDC05A) to produce a 1000 year long methane record with a ~9 year temporal resolution. This record confirmed the existence of multidecadal scale variations that were first observed in the Law Dome, Antarctica ice core. I then explored a range of paleoclimate archives for possible mechanistic connections with methane concentrations on multidecadal timescales. In addition, I present a detailed description of the analytical methods used to obtain high-precision measurements of methane including the effects of solubility and a new chronology for the WDC05A ice core. I found that, in general, the correlations with paleoclimate proxies for temperature and precipitation were low over a range of geographic regions. Of these, the highest correlations were found from 1400-1600 C.E. during the onset of the Little Ice Age and with a drought index in the headwater region of the major East Asian rivers. Large population losses in Asia and the Americas are also coincident with methane concentration decreases indicating that anthropogenic activities may have been impacting multidecadal scale methane variability. In the second component I extended the WAIS Divide record back to 2800 years B.P. and also measured methane from GISP2D over this time interval. These records allowed me to examine the methane Inter-Polar Difference (IPD) which is created by greater northern hemispheric sources. The IPD provides an important constraint on changes in the latitudinal distribution of sources. We used this constraint and an 8-box global methane chemical transport model to examine the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis which posits that humans began influencing climate thousands of years ago by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and preventing the onset of the next ice age. I found that most of the increase in methane sources over this time came from tropical regions with a smaller contribution coming from the extratropical northern hemisphere. Based on previous modeling estimates of natural methane source changes, I found that the increase in the southern hemisphere tropical methane emissions was likely natural and that the northern hemispheric increase in methane emissions was likely due to anthropogenic activities. These results also provide new constraints on the total magnitude of pre-industrial anthropogenic methane emissions, which I found to be between the high and low estimates that have been previously published in the literature. For the final component of my thesis I assembled a coalition of scientists to investigate the effects of layering on the process of air enclosure in ice at WAIS Divide. Air bubbles are trapped in ice 60-100m below the surface of an ice sheet as snow compacts into solid ice in a region that is known as the Lock-In Zone (LIZ). The details of this process are not known and in the absence of direct measurements previous researchers have assumed it to be a smooth process. This project utilized high-resolution methane and air content measurements as well as density of ice, δ¹⁵N of N₂, and bubble number density measurements to show that air entrapment is affected by high frequency (mm scale) layering in the density of ice within the LIZ. I show that previous parameterizations of the bubble closure process in firn models have not accounted for this variability and present a new parameterization which does. This has implications for interpreting rapid changes in trace gases measured in ice cores since variable bubble closure will impact the smoothing of those records. In particular it is essential to understand the details of this process as new high resolution ice core records from Antarctica and Greenland examine the relative timing between greenhouse gases and rapid climate changes. / Graduation date: 2013

A pollen profile from varved lake sediments sampled at 10-year intervals and spanning the past 1000 years is analyzed to understand the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity on forests in southwestern Quebec. The forests responded rapidly to changes in temperature and precipitation during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as well as to land-use changes associated with the European Settlement of the area. The transition into the Little Ice Age was abrupt and had significant impact on the pollen production within a couple of decades. A synthesis of this record with other high-resolution and well-dated pollen data from the conifer-hardwood forest of eastern North America shows consistent results across the whole area, indicating that very-high resolution pollen data can provide insight into multi-decadal climate variability and its impact on forest vegetation. Tree-ring records from the region show inter-annual fluctuations not always consistent between sites, while high-resolution pollen data record multi-decadal to century changes which enable us to interpret climatic effects on plant communities.

Two peat cores from two mires with different characteristics, but both containingpermafrost features and located in the eastern part of the Tavvavuoma mire complex innorthernmost Sweden, were analysed for macrofossils and geochemical properties. Local vegetationsequences and changes in geochemical properties of peat were used to reconstruct development ofthe studied mires during the Holocene. The study includes measurements of water/ice content, bulkdensity, loss-on-ignition and C/N ratio. Radiocarbon dates for peatland inception and permafrostaggradation are available. The main purpose of the study is to verify permafrost history in thepeatlands. The results of the macrofossil analysis and values of C/N ratio indicate nutrient poor tointermediate fen environments in both studied mires until recently. Signs of permafrost upheavalwhich caused formation of xerophilic peat can be proved only since late 1950’s. The study resultscorroborate with other studies from Northern Fennoscandia and infer peatland initiation soon afterthe deglaciation of the area and permafrost-free conditions throughout entire Holocene untilrecently.

Cellulose-inferred lake water oxygen-isotope records were obtained from five throughflow lakes situated along a north-south transect across Fennoscandia to help develop a better picture of Holocene changes in atmospheric circulation in the region. This research addresses prior evidence for the existence of non-temperature-dependent shifts in d18O of precipitation in the early Holocene attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation. The validity of this hypothesis is tested through the development of oxygen-isotope records from lake sediments and their interpretation in the context of independent reconstructions of temperature and precipitation from pollen and chironomid head-capsules collected from the same or nearby sites, and well-documented changes in vegetation composition. Records of carbon and nitrogen elemental content and isotopic composition and magnetic susceptibility are included in this multi-proxy investigation. Extensive modern isotope hydrology datasets spanning several years at four of the five sites also help to inform interpretations of the cellulose d18O records. Key results from this research are: 1) Elevated d18O in relation to prevailing temperature occurred during the early Holocene (c. 10,000-6000 cal. BP) for sites in northern Fennoscandia (Lake Tibetanus, Lake Spåime), in harmony with previous interpretations suggesting that strong zonal atmospheric circulation led to deepening of the precipitation and isotope shadows in the lee of the Scandes Mountains. 2) Evidence from a southern site (Arbovatten) reveals a previously unrecognized negative offset in the d18O-temperature relation during the early Holocene, apparently transferred directly from the North Atlantic without the orographic effects associated with a topographic barrier. 3) The modern d18O-temperature relation appears to have been established throughout Fennoscandia by c. 6000-4000 cal. BP, probably due to generally weaker circumpolar atmospheric circulation in response to lower summer insolation. 4) Comparison of two sites (Lake Spåime, Svartkälstjärn) in a west-east transect across central Fennoscandia reveals higher-frequency variability in atmospheric circulation at submillennial scales throughout the Holocene, which appears to be analogous to contemporary variability in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) at seasonal-to-decadal time-scales. Evidence of such NAO-like variability also exists at two northern sites (Lake Keitjoru, Oikojärvi) during the Holocene, likely reflecting variations in summer and winter atmospheric circulation. 5) Complex lake-specific changes in productivity occurred in response to Holocene climate change, as revealed by carbon and nitrogen elemental and isotopic data in lake sediments. A major shift in atmospheric circulation pattern occurring at c. 4000 cal. BP probably led to a reduction in soil-derived 13C-depleted nutrients in five lakes (Lake Keitjoru, Oikojärvi, Lake Spåime, Svartkälstjärn, Arbovatten) associated with changes in terrestrial vegetation. Changes in sediment nitrogen isotope composition also occurred in these lakes at c. 4000 cal. BP, possibly reflecting changing nutrient supply dynamics because of enhanced nitrogen losses during spring snowmelt.

I use time-constrained sediment volumes delivered by glaciers calving into Marinelli Fjord (55°S), an outlet glacier of the Cordillera Darwin Ice Cap, Southern Patagonia, to determine erosion rates across different timescales. These results indicate that modern sediment yields and erosion rates from temperate tidewater glaciers can exceed long-term values over the time of deglaciation after the LGM (centennial and millennial time scales) by up to two orders of magnitude. In northern Patagonia (Gualas glacier area, 46.5°S), an overall increase in sediment production in the late Holocene is interpreted as result of a sharp increase in centennial timescale precipitation (intensified westerly winds). Erosion rates values span two orders of magnitude from 0.03 mm/yr for Lapeyrere Bay at Anver Island (~64.5°S), up to 1.09 mm/yr for San Rafael glacier at northern Patagonia (~46.5°S). Rates from the Antarctic Peninsula glaciers are in general lower than the temperate Patagonian glaciers. A good correlation of erosion rates and modern (estimated sea level annual 1970 temperature) sea level annual temperature was found. Latitudinal decrease of millenial is interpreted as result of decreasing annual temperature although decreasing in annual precipitation is suggested. The pattern of thermochronology ages from other studies (Thompson et al., 2010; Guenthner et al., 2010), along with the values of 10 3 and 10 6 years timescales erosion rates from this study, indicate that long-term glacial erosion decreases significantly its efficiency with latitude, implying that long-term glacial cover acts as a protective blanket, hindering erosion and allowing mountain growth. We conclude that the pattern of erosion rate decrease with timescale reflects the sensitivity of glaciers to climate variability. Temperate glaciers have higher sensitivity and greater response amplitude to climatic stress than subpolar or polar glaciers. This results in a decrease in erosion rates (sediment production) with latitude, and also in a decrease of erosion rate gradients with timescale.

Cellulose-inferred lake water oxygen-isotope records were obtained from five throughflow lakes situated along a north-south transect across Fennoscandia to help develop a better picture of Holocene changes in atmospheric circulation in the region. This research addresses prior evidence for the existence of non-temperature-dependent shifts in d18O of precipitation in the early Holocene attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation. The validity of this hypothesis is tested through the development of oxygen-isotope records from lake sediments and their interpretation in the context of independent reconstructions of temperature and precipitation from pollen and chironomid head-capsules collected from the same or nearby sites, and well-documented changes in vegetation composition. Records of carbon and nitrogen elemental content and isotopic composition and magnetic susceptibility are included in this multi-proxy investigation. Extensive modern isotope hydrology datasets spanning several years at four of the five sites also help to inform interpretations of the cellulose d18O records. Key results from this research are: 1) Elevated d18O in relation to prevailing temperature occurred during the early Holocene (c. 10,000-6000 cal. BP) for sites in northern Fennoscandia (Lake Tibetanus, Lake Spåime), in harmony with previous interpretations suggesting that strong zonal atmospheric circulation led to deepening of the precipitation and isotope shadows in the lee of the Scandes Mountains. 2) Evidence from a southern site (Arbovatten) reveals a previously unrecognized negative offset in the d18O-temperature relation during the early Holocene, apparently transferred directly from the North Atlantic without the orographic effects associated with a topographic barrier. 3) The modern d18O-temperature relation appears to have been established throughout Fennoscandia by c. 6000-4000 cal. BP, probably due to generally weaker circumpolar atmospheric circulation in response to lower summer insolation. 4) Comparison of two sites (Lake Spåime, Svartkälstjärn) in a west-east transect across central Fennoscandia reveals higher-frequency variability in atmospheric circulation at submillennial scales throughout the Holocene, which appears to be analogous to contemporary variability in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) at seasonal-to-decadal time-scales. Evidence of such NAO-like variability also exists at two northern sites (Lake Keitjoru, Oikojärvi) during the Holocene, likely reflecting variations in summer and winter atmospheric circulation. 5) Complex lake-specific changes in productivity occurred in response to Holocene climate change, as revealed by carbon and nitrogen elemental and isotopic data in lake sediments. A major shift in atmospheric circulation pattern occurring at c. 4000 cal. BP probably led to a reduction in soil-derived 13C-depleted nutrients in five lakes (Lake Keitjoru, Oikojärvi, Lake Spåime, Svartkälstjärn, Arbovatten) associated with changes in terrestrial vegetation. Changes in sediment nitrogen isotope composition also occurred in these lakes at c. 4000 cal. BP, possibly reflecting changing nutrient supply dynamics because of enhanced nitrogen losses during spring snowmelt.