The bias and signal attenuation present in conventional pollen-based climate reconstructions as assessed by early climate data from Minnesota, USA.

ABSTRACT: The inference of past temperatures from a sedimentary pollen record depends upon the stationarity of the pollen-climate relationship. However, humans have altered vegetation independent of changes to climate, and consequently modern pollen deposition is a product of landscape disturbance and climate, which is different from the dominance of climate-derived processes in the past. This problem could cause serious signal distortion in pollen-based reconstructions. In the north-central United States, direct human impacts have strongly altered the modern vegetation and hence the pollen rain since Euro-American settlement in the mid-19th century. Using instrumental temperature data from the early 1800 s from Fort Snelling (Minnesota), we assessed the signal distortion and bias introduced by usin

SUBMITTER: St Jacques JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4300216 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature