High-resolution Holocene Climatic Reconstructions from the Eastern Canadian Arctic

Jonathan T. Overpeck   (Principal Investigator current)

Abstract    

     This award supports an integrated field and laboratory paleoenvironmental
     study of the eastern Canadian Arctic (60 to 90 degrees West, 50 to 85 degrees
     North), a region known to have experienced significant climatic change during
     the Holocene.  The field team will obtain complete undisturbed sediment records
     from six strategically located arctic lakes.  Fossil pollen and diatom analyses
     will provide two independent well-dated paleoclimated records for each lake.
     The new paleoclimatic time series will be combined with published and
     unpublished data to generate a 100 + site network of plaeoclimate records for
     the region.  This network will be used to map 1) past vegetation change and 2)
     past climate change over a significant portion of the North American arctic. 
     This investigation will also provide an opportunity to test the utility of
     annually laminated sediments for arctic paleoclimatology.  This effort will
     provide important new data for inclusion in the eventual mapping and analysis
     of past environmental change across the entire North Arctic.