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Pollen Response-Surface Estimates of Late-Quaternary Changes in the Moisture Balance of the Northeastern United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert S. Webb ,
Katherine H. Anderson  and
Thompson Webb III
Robert S. Webb
Affiliation:
Paleoclimatology Program, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80303
Katherine H. Anderson
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Box 1846, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
Thompson Webb III
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Box 1846, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
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Abstract

Quantitative estimates of late-Quaternary climate in the northeastern United States are reconstructed from fossil pollen data to evaluate changes in the regional moisture balance inferred from water-level fluctuations. We use environmental response surfaces to calibrate modern pollen data (for 17 different taxa) to an index of effective soil moisture and mean annual precipitation. We apply these response surfaces to fossil pollen data from 60 sites in the region to reconstruct changes in soil moisture and mean annual precipitation at 3000-yr intervals from 12,000 yr B.P. to present. The mapped reconstructions of soil moisture and mean annual precipitation illustrate how the regional moisture balance of the Northeast may have changed over the last 12,000 yr in response to changing climate. Reconstructions of annual precipitation show a gradual increase from 30% below modern values at 12,000 yr B.P. to near-modern values by 6000 yr B.P. and then remain relatively constant thereafter. Reconstructed changes in the index of effective soil moisture, however, show a pattern of near-modern values at 12,000, 6000, and 3000 yr B.P., with significantly lower values estimated for 9000 yr B.P., the time of maximum pine pollen abundances in the Northeast. This pattern of change is similar to the change in regional moisture balance inferred from stratigraphic records of water-level fluctuations. These results confirm previous interpretations, based on records of water-level fluctuations, that conditions in the Northeast were significantly drier during the early to middle Holocene than at other times during the last 12,000 yr.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , September 1993 , pp. 213 - 227
Copyright
University of Washington

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