HR: 10:20h
AN: PP42B-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Palaeoecological Evidence for Early Holocene Climates in Southeast Australia
AU: * Kershaw, P
EM: peter.kershaw@arts.monash.edu.au
AF: Monash University, School of Geography and Environmental Science Monash University , Melbourne, Vic 3800 Australia
AU: Porch, N
PP42B-01 AF: Monash University, School of Geography and Environmental Science Monash University , Melbourne, Vic 3800 Australia
AB: Southeast Australia has the greatest concentration of pollen records on the continent and they reveal a consistent picture of vegetation and climate change through the last glacial termination and Holocene periods. In general terms climate conditions similar to those of today were achieved by the beginning of the Holocene with the disappearance of characteristically glacial taxa and establishment of widespread woodland and forest communities. The mid Holocene, dating to between about 7000 and 5000 years BP, was characterised by maximum extent of forest vegetation and highest lake levels indicating a peak in effective precipitation with a long held assumption also of highest Holocene temperatures, while the late Holocene exhibits more variable conditions that, recently, have been attributed to a greater frequency or intensity of El Nino events. Conditions during the early Holocene have been difficult to determine. Recent applications of present day climate range estimates to selected pollen and beetle taxa recorded in Holocene sediments, using a bioclimatic prediction system, are providing quantitative climate estimates for this period. There is evidence that mean annual temperatures achieved levels higher than today in the Early Holocene while summer temperatures exceeded those in the mid Holocene. Consequently the early Holocene must be considered as the Holocene Thermal Maximum. High summer temperatures combined with evidence for high summer rainfall suggests greater penetration of the tropical monsoon into southern Australia and a southward shift of the westerly wind belt system.
DE: 4914 Continental climate records
DE: 4950 Paleoecology
DE: 9330 Australia
DE: 9605 Neogene
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005